Pitchfork

Pop music gets off way too easily; so long as groups stick to only the sweetest melodies, throw in a couple of ba-ba-buh's and sing about how Stacey's mom "has got it goin' on," or some other such timeless verse, they're valued as somehow above the fray. It seems even the most venomous rock elitists can be defanged by a few simple hooks, turned endlessly forgiving by some easy harmonies. If Stalin himself had ruled with less of an iron fist and more Beach Boys-style harmonies, he might be remembered as much for his keen songwriting chops as for the wholesale slaughter of millions of his own people; such is the inexplicably titanic redemptive power of pop. That self-same blinding power is also why it takes a band as innovative as The Unicorns to throw the complacencies of pop into stark relief, to finally hold it accountable for such casual abuses.

When it's so easy for bands to stay behind the indie-pop curve that you'd think someone's handing out ice cream back there, The Unicorns are ahead. In fact, they're so far ahead that superficial distinction becomes virtually unnecessary; they're striking at the most fundamental structure of the pop song itself. Without scrutiny, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?, their debut album for the otherwise experimental Canadian label Alien8, can pass for the same sort of sugar-glazed jangle-pop that's been done to death, but has nevertheless been beloved for years in indie circles; all the elements I just derided are present in abundance, right down to a rare few instances of smarmy lyrics. The band traffics in the occasional oooh's and aaah's, and relies on retro-basic keyboards for the requisite flourish above and beyond the standard guitar fuzz. And yet, The Unicorns toe the line of bedroom intimacy and heart-swelling wonder as perfectly as any of the modern masters of the form.

In that sense, they rival The Shins, or The Magnetic Fields, or any of the innumerable indie touchstones, but what truly sets Who Will Cut Our Hair apart is the near-total absence of traditional verse/chorus/verse framework in their songs; to nail beautiful, memorable lines with such remarkable ease is a feat unto itself, but to do so in essentially formless compositions is a different class of achievement entirely. Songs shift effortlessly from segment to segment, never relying upon the crutch of repetitive composition to create the illusion of a powerful hook. That's not to say that motifs aren't revisited throughout a song, but elementary concepts of A-B-A structure are abandoned in favor of brilliant, sprawling whole-song compositions.

These days, when "epic" describes a line at the bank, it doesn't seem adequate to describe the scope of some of these tunes, but it'll have to suffice. "Jellybones" is a titanic wreck of styles and forms, offering glimpses of hooks that would serve other bands as whole songs like so many kittens; "Tuff Ghost" builds around two simple rhythmic shifts and never looks back, burning through a dozen variations of the song's central keyboard line. And the intricate plucking to open "I Was Born (A Unicorn)" gives way to a bizarre fiction: "I was born a unicorn/ I missed the ark, but I could've sworn/ You'd wait for me," then, "So how come all the other unicorns are dead?" This hilariously morbid variation on a typical theme of loss or abandonment is par for the course on Who Will Cut Our Hair, exemplifying how The Unicorns continually and effortlessly sap the drama from rock's favorite, most maudlin topics, and transform them into simple, charming, light-hearted fun. It's a big part of what separates them from all those careerist indie rockers getting by on everyday hooks and affected disinterest; even at their goofiest, The Unicorns' level of comfort with their material-- and the obvious confidence that engenders-- makes it all seem totally natural and new.