BLOWIN' INDIE WIND

Author: ALISON LACIVITA

Perhaps I have just been studying for the GRE Literature for too long, but I could not help equating Homer and Virgil to the artists Pavement and Guided by Voices, and Holopaw to the neo-classicists. When I first began listening to what is now known as "indie rock," it was due to a job I had at a little movie theater called Spectrum 7. There, I was introduced to bands that would become the soundtrack for the past five years of my life - Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, Pavement, Guided by Voices, Stereolab, Belle and Sebastian and Yo La Tengo. Most of my co-workers were in bands that strived to sound like Stephen Malkmus (Pavement) or Guided by Voices. At the impressionable age of sixteen, this movie theater, these people and these bands were something very real, something very special to me.

Over the past few years, music has changed. "Indie rock" has disappeared as a genre and has morphed into a label, an image and turned into the over-used stereotype of "hipster". Independent music has taken on new faces with the rise of the music scene in Brooklyn and Los Angeles and the shift away from the post-grunge era of the Pacific Northwest that was responsible for the creation of SubPop, the label that originally signed Nirvana, Mudhoney and Modest Mouse.

Jean Beaudrillard defines postmodernism as the idea that humans no longer have anywhere new to go and continue orbiting around an already existing point. this is how I feel about the music scene. Everything has become so "experimental" to me - heavily electronic, cacophonous, discordant. I enjoy some of it, of course, but it will never be GBV's "Echos Myron," Yo La Tengo's "Autumn Sweater" or Pavement's "Shady Lane." If GBV is my Homer, then Holopaw is my Fielding.

Holopaw's second album, "Quit +/Or Fight," undoubtedly recognizes its precursors and strives to interweave the newer styles of the past few years through a sound that is inarguably influenced by the "indie rock" of the early 90's. The band hails from Gainsville, Fla. and their namesake is taken from a Floridian town. It makes perfect sense, then, that "Holopaw" was brought to SubPop by Isaac Brock, frontman of Modest Mouse. Similar to a work like GBV's "Bee Thousand" or Yo La Tengo's "I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One," "Quit +/Or Fight" feels cohesive, like a finished product and an album one would actually want to go out and buy in order to have the liner notes and the cover art. I have not felt this way about many albums since The Shins released "Oh, Inverted World." Holopaw manages to nod towards the forefathers of their genre and update the sound in a way that would cause new listeners to perhaps seek out some older Belle and Sebastian or Sea and Cake.

The album opens with "Losing Light," a very heavily Belle and Sebastian influenced blend of subdued vocals, retreating guitar riffs and subtle drumming. The harmonies are strong and the singing is self-conscious and inviting. As an opening track, "Losing Light" certainly serves draws the listener into the album. "3-Shy-Cubs" continues in the same vein, heading, in some spots, towards twee-pop alternating with a Sea and Cake style electronic syncopation and varying volumes and intensities over a steady, unobtrusive beat in the background. "Curious" is a perfect example of how Holoplaw blends the old in with the new. The track features a breathy vocal intro and strings placed over a repetitive, basic guitar sequence. "Needle in the Sway" is a nearly invisible track - it is quiet and mournful, lacks any semblance of a refrain, and fades away as gently as it began. "Ghosties" exhibits a little more alt-country influence than seen on the rest of the album, featuring a slightly more twangy guitar and a perpetual bass drum underneath shaky vocals and mild choral sequences. The last track, "Shiver Me," serves as a perfectly delicate finale, fading away as mellifluously as the album began.

So, in short, music lovers who are slightly disenchanted by the current music scene, give "Holopaw's Quit +/Or Fight" a chance and perhaps you will be dancing around your room in heroic couplets.