Pitchfork

I was lucky to catch this trio at their first live performance ever, a show they played at ACME Underground in New York. Singer/guitarist Alex Tween was a spindly, elfin bundle of nerves behind his telecaster, and the band's obviously capable drummer sort of kept fucking up. Only the impassive and vaguely scholarly looking character on bass managed to keep up any appearance of composure, but the overall effect was still very much Shy Kid at the Back of the Classroom Forced into an Impromptu Class Presentation.

No matter, they rocked. Cold, frayed nerves and all. So, it was an added pleasure to get home with my newly purchased copy of this, their debut CD, to find that the completely unknown group was even better recorded than live. I imagine that a huge part of the credit for that ought to go to producer Steve Albini. Yes, that Steve Albini-- not some be-mulleted namesake from Bensonhurst, but the same man who recorded In Utero and Rid of Me, and several other albums you never sold back to the local CD Exchange for $5.

That's sort of a big deal, right, so I thought I'd take a look at the band's website to get the scoop, some scoop, or anything, really. And? My perusal of the website uncovers... nothing! Only a photograph of a mechanical spider suspended from some strange steel girder structure at dusk. And the glossy CD insert is every bit as eager to obfuscate the identities of the players, the lyrical content of the songs, and whether or not the album title is some sort of Joyce-damaged homage. Instead, we get a frustratingly cryptic, albeit very pretty series of photographs taken in various desolate, urban locations: industrial alleyways, close-ups of cinder-blocks with bird stencils, a faraway shot of a bizarre baptism scene on a rock jetty with the Verrazano Narrows bridge in the background.

But what's a mystery if you don't give a shit whodunit? That's where these ten, enticingly short tracks come in. (Their music is, like, the "it" in "whodunit." Follow along now.) The three culprits craft wiry, punchy, indie pop with refreshingly un-hackneyed time-signature games and judiciously placed dissonant chords. The tracks blend into one another, making this under-twenty-minute "album" more of a concept EP than anything, and the songs are basically all in the same key. These sorts of things ordinarily make me play Promo Frisbee, but of course, this wasn't a promo and, more importantly, Icarus musically surpasses the flying Nerf disc.

"Stel," apparently comprised of both tracks one and two, opens things up with lots of start/stop/start action and brittle guitar jangle, over which Tween sings something about children. I can't make it out, but the music makes a compelling case for the trio as a rock, um, form. The bass is at turns melodic and quietly solid, locking perfectly with the drums when it has to, and never leaving the vocals or the sweet and wispy guitar parts out to dry. There is no excess to the arrangements and every element has a role which it fulfills beautifully. The overall effect is sort of a minimalist Jawbox with a disdain for 4/4 time, and an effortless talent for making unconventional time sound perfectly natural.

The songs really are so short and interdependent that it's hard to speak of them as individuals. "Sunday," the third "song," again made up of tracks five and six, is the album's finest moment. Here, Tween's silvery voice, perhaps the best thing about this band, soars like the album's namesake around a gorgeous melody, and over some tastefully off-kilter drumming, while his guitar lines follow a pace or two behind.

Rivaling "Sunday" for top honors is "Classical," the album's eighth track and fifth song (someday, it will all be explained). Again, the song's strong point is Tween's melody. The soothing, and oddly poppy vocal lines anchor the music's stop-and-go eccentricities and distract you from the potentially troubling fact that you've been hearing the same major scale for fifteen minutes.

"Stravinsky," the questionably titled but nevertheless solid final track is a shoe-in for the bronze, employing a gorgeous piano line that could never work in a rock context if attempted by someone clumsier. But in the Forms' able hands this potentially awkward component becomes just one more sound in their mellifluous, wonderfully well-integrated sonic attack.

I expect bigger and even better things to come from these guys in future days. Keep an eye and ear out. Maybe next time they'll even put words in their liner notes.