Emo band is more than just a replacement
By JOHN HUSTON
Scene Music Critic
A watch is a very important thing, but so is a watchband.
You and the old one were quite comfortable with each other until it decided to wear out and break apart. You are left with two options: convert the wristwatch into a pocket watch or get a replacement watchband.
It takes a couple of weeks to get used to a new leather watchband. Breaking it in takes a little bit of patience, but usually the change is for the better.
Such a transition period is currently playing itself out in the underground indie rock scene. Braid, the emo giant from Chicago, decided to break up last August, and emo fans were forced to forge onward without them. Groups like Braid are hard to come by; their lyrical and musical genius was truly unrivaled. If Braid was the band that held the indie rock watch together, fans have been carrying a pocket watch since the breakup.
But then the Dismemberment Plan released its third album, Emergency & I, and suddenly everything in the indie rock community started to seem OK. Not only are they worthy replacements for Braid, they are probably the best band in America right now.
The album takes a little getting used to, but in the end the greatest albums are always the ones that have to grow on you. Music that is instantly catchy gets boring and tiring the more it is heard, but Dismemberment Plan seems to get fresher and fresher. New intricacies and hooks to the music on Emergency & I seem to arise during each successive listen. Once the music attracts your ears, the lyrics are quick to needle the brain.
Lyrically, Dismemberment Plan singer/songwriter Travis Morrison presents an intelligent, 20-something perspective on some of the most important subjects of human existence: love and loneliness.
Sure, other emo bands like the Promise Ring and the Get Up Kids share these themes, how could you have emo without love and loneliness? The Dismemberment Plan broadens those topics, while commenting on them in a way in which few writers could begin to attempt, let alone succeed.
Musically, Emergency & I is a step in a new direction from your average indie rock/emo album. While other bands have begun adding keyboards to their guitar, bass and drum lineup, their music still comes out the same.
The Dismemberment Plan uses the same instruments, but their final product contains an extra ingredient: originality. Braid's music was original by being both poly-rhythmic and catchy at the same time.
But the Dismemberment Plan takes on odd time signatures, too, and its songs are equally poppy but infuse a hip hop-like aspect. Morrison takes pride in the fact that while his other bandmates were discovering punk in their childhoods, he was listening to rap.
Varying musical influences give Emergency & I a rather unusual characteristic for an emo album: You can legitimately dance to it! That's quite a bold and risky thing for an emo band to do, since the most motion you can usually incite out of an emo audience is a slight, rhythmic head-bobbing.
Travis Morrison doesn't think the Dismemberment Plan is emo, but there aren't many reputable emo bands that would allow themselves to be labeled like that.
However, there's guilt by association, and since the Dismemberment Plan tour with emo bands and is embraced by a firm emo audience, it's certifiably emo. It's really a moot point to make. The important thing is that the Dismemberment Plan has come to indie rock's rescue.
Some people say that rock music has reached the 11th hour. Check your watch, because the Dismemberment Plan disagrees. It's just the dawning of a new day.
All Scene Stories for Tuesday, February 15, 2000
