Ingmar Bergman said that the marriage of music to film was “barbaric,” but�despite Cameron Crowe’s repeated efforts to prove him right�it’s still about as accepted as barbarism gets. And if I’m leery of a world in which no film is allowed to have any music, I understand the concern: music provides not only emotional cues but emotional manipulation; it’s the easy way out; it lets any hack have his way with an audience’s heartstrings. When it’s used to punctuate or enhance points on a dramatic arc (when music conveying a particular emotion is shoehorned into an emotional journey just to remind you where you are) things get tricky, but what if there’s no arc; what if it’s a poem rather than a novel, a song rather than a symphony? What’s wrong with backing up a work of a single tone with another work of a single tone? What’s wrong, in short, with trailer music?

There are two kinds of movie trailers: those set to pop songs and those set to Carl Orff’s “Fortuna Imperiatrix Mundi.” We are concerned today with the former, though it should be noted that you can’t go wrong with the latter, especially if you fade into and out of black ten times during the first half. Here, then, are three songs that aren’t in trailers but should be, and the trailers they should be in:

Johnny Boy - Bonnie Parker’s 115th Dream
For a political thriller, one containing enough exotic location shots and intent men in sunglasses to do justice to the song’s roiling energy and sinister freneticism. The trailer, like the song, peaks at the 3:47 mark, where the cocky acceleration of the previous forty-seven seconds, which have supported a series of incomprehensible shots of airplanes, explosions, and oak desks, give way first to impossibly urgent wails of “I’m a believer,” as very important people look over their shoulders with dreadful resolve, then at last to the churn of the final chorus, which stampedes across the audience in Dolby Surround and leaves behind nothing but a simple “coming soon.”

Sparks � Metaphor
The filmmakers advertising their product here will have worked quietly and increasingly deftly for years, sticking steadily to the kind of delirious, smart-alecky absurdism that survives in a major studio only because too few people are watching to make it really unpopular. No Ebert and Roeper reviews, no garment-distribution deals with Hot Topic, no applications of the phrase “festival darlings,” no opportunities for backlash. Just a steady background thrum of goofy playfulness, delivered in regular packages like this song. The insular showtune arrangement and bizarre lyrics, which aren’t so much clever as so removed from standard pop-song concerns that they induce mild awe, will run parallel with the bizarre but utterly straight-faced nature of the movie�it’s not exactly that it’s funny it’s just that it seems to have been shuttled in from another universe, where it was accused of being formulaic but made decent box office. Novelty is rarely this professional.

Andrew Bird - Fake Palindromes
People come of age, preferably several of them, preferably during autumn, preferably in Wisconsin. Forget for a moment the ironic menace of the lyrics, and listen to the sound: the Moeibus-strip riff opening and closing the song is precisely the kind of exultant glory one can get away with in pop songs and trailers but rarely in movies; and the sepia-toned verses will be played over backwoods Capture the Flag games, confused rain-soaked kisses, and quiet looks over breakfast, precisely because it is the music you wish would play while you play Capture the Flag or kiss people in the rain or look quietly at them over breakfast. The film, with its dramatic obligations, will be forced to adopt tones besides autumnal resignation, but for these three minutes it’s all about the falling leaves and quiet smiles. Such is the beauty of the brief evocation. Such is the beauty of the trailer.

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Music lovers tend to cite their own passions in the artform as a kind of therapy. I�m certainly no exception. Ambient music has been a successful means of physical and mental therapy for me since my high school years. I would go as far as to argue that ambient music offers a more highly developed therapeutic quality than most other music. I suppose this doesn�t actually mean much, since I have a neighbor upstairs who tends to go to sleep to doom metal and early-nineties thunderdome. However, ambient music seems like it was invented specifically for its therapeutic quality, and that quality has been embraced and channeled by a varied hodgepodge of folks. These days, as demonstrated on this mixed set, ambient music is written and recorded by pop producers, techno producers, modern classical composers, indie bands, metal bands, synth miners, prog types, new age prigs, and on and on.

“Tummy Therapy” is something of a self-addressed, self-received �get well soon� card. You see, I recently got over a nine-day-strong stomach virus. Between partaking in the many unpleasant bustles involved with this particular illness, I compiled this mixed set. Perhaps it kept me sensible throughout the long stretch of the wretched ailment, as I was otherwise rendered useless.

If you ever see a stomach virus, stab it. Hard.

00:00: Biosphere � �Warmed by the Drift� (Touch, 2006)

Norwegian producer Geir Jenssen is one of ambient music�s new school high rollers. While he hasn�t been around quite long enough to achieve vet status, his albums have been often compared to those of the Enos and Tangerine Dreams on the circuit. Like Jenssen�s last four albums for the Touch label, the recently released Dropsonde offers deep and tactfully atmospheric ambient. It occasionally dips into jazz stylings and instrumentation but otherwise stays true to the aesthetic harnessed on those earlier releases. �Warmed by the Drift� is one of the less jazz-oriented tracks on Dropsonde and can be best compared to his work on 1997�s Substrata or 2002�s Shenzou.

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06:31: Harold Budd � �The Child With a Lion� (Opal, 1988)

Harold Budd had been on the neo-classical circuit for 10 years or so when he buddied up with Brian Eno and began releasing albums. He was in his late 40s when Ambient 2 was released. �The Child With a Lion� comes from a later album, The White Arcades, which was reissued this year on Eno�s All Saints label. Things come off a bit new agey on this piece, but Budd�s keyboard prowess shines through the hokiness.

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11:50: Vladislav Delay � �The Fourth Quarter� (Huume, 2005)

This Finnish producer has a knack for making percussion-heavy tracks that somehow seem devoid of rhythm. Hi-hats spatter; snares clap, but the listener neglects to register these happenings as percussive elements. Delay�s perky atmospherics, mellow pads and jerky sound effects make his sound a one-of-a-kind laptop feat. �The Fourth Quarter� combines a minimal techno aesthetic with more conventional ambient stylings and comes from The Four Seasons full length, released late last year on Delay�s own Huume imprint.

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16:46: Steve Hillage � �Garden of Paradise� (Virgin, 1979)

�Garden of Paradise� is culled from the 1979-released Rainbow Dome Musick LP. It�s perhaps unnecessarily lengthy, as the piece�s breakdown could easily be exercised in a mere five minutes or so. Nevertheless, I can assume ambient music is intended to be savored over longer-than-average lengths of time. �Garden of Paradise� starts out atmospheric with some tinkling keys for good measure. After a while, it evolves into a spacey opus with wandering synths and classic Hillage victory guitars.

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32:40: Sigur R�s � �Ba Ba� (Geffen, 2004)

Ba Ba Ti Ki Do Do was an odd release for Sigur R�s. The electronic EP seemed strangely patterned after a Selmasongs interlude. �Ba Ba� is the first of three tracks, and its bell choir orientation fits snugly into this ambient set, even though you might not otherwise identify it as an ambient track. Icelanders tend to know their way around melodics, and �Ba Ba� is perhaps a testament to that detail.

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37:00: Klaus Schulze � �Crystal Lake� (Island, 1977)

As if 15 minutes of Steve Hillage weren�t enough prog for you, fear not. Klaus Schulze has 20 minutes more of where that came from. �Crystal Lake� is a long trek of twinkling, foreboding bell pads and sustained minor chord progressions. It�s taken from the Tangerine Dream member�s ninth and arguably best solo record, Mirage, which got the reissue treatment this time last year on Inside Out.

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58:12: Markus G�ntner & La Grande Illusio � �Baghira� (Kompakt, 2005)

Kompakt�s annually issued Pop Ambient series is seven volumes strong. Stylistically, it hasn�t budged since the first installment, but it�s still a unique embarkment into ambient territories, and it has yet to be convincingly duplicated. �Baghira� comes from Pop Ambient 2006, released this past October. The piece�s acoustic guitar and piano lead the series into an oddly non-digital realm.

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64:45: Jan Jelinek � �Morphing Leadgitarre R�ckw�rts� (~Scape, 2005)

Making up for any lagging �Baghira� had going on in the digital department, �Morphing Leadgitarre R�ckw�rts� is classic ~Scape, even though it sounds more fit for Kompakt. Digital imperfections tweet, hum and snarl along like vintage Oval. The fa�ade may lean more towards microsound, but the underbelly is decidedly drone ambient.

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72:05: Boards of Canada � �Tears From the Compound Eye� (Warp, 2005)

The awkward trip-hop beats found in Boards of Canada’s music bring a trendy spin on an otherwise more traditional palette of hazy tones and blurred atmospherics. Every now and again, they’ll turn out an excellent beatless tune. (Let me clarify: I tend to use the words “beatless” and “percussionless” interchangeably.) Such as “Tears from the Compound Eye,” which luckily clocks in at around four minutes rather than being a short interlude.

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1981 was an important year. I say that not simply because I was born then. Other important things happened too. Like the peaking of the brilliant Australian post-punk music scene, before it all got swallowed up in the boorish pub rock of my childhood.

Two of my favourite songs of all time (and indie club staples down under) were recorded in Australia in 1981�The Church�s �The Unguarded Moment� and �We Can Get Together� by Icehouse (at the time called Flowers).

Both songs feature the nervy energy of post-punk bands like Gang of Four and Wire, the gloomy outlook of The Cure and the atmospheric synths that were gaining acceptance in the rock fraternity. They�re also pop classics in their own right, with their sing-alongable choruses and danceable beats.

Actually, I might be stretching the bit about pop and dancing. They�re really only danceable in a certain situation�in a darkened club, in the early hours of the morning, with the most miserable black-clad people you can find. Try it�I�m sure you�ll like it.

It�s funny trying to recreate a scene that you were too young to have really experienced. I used to mock the wannabe mod kids, who dressed like they were in The Kinks and only bought vinyl, but by imagining that I�m dancing to The Church in a basement club some time in the early 80s, I�m still an indie-fantasist.

Of course, now things are different because everything old is new again. The new new wave has swept by and we can listen to the sounds of revivalist bands like The Killers and it�s fresh and new and we can wear retro clothes because they�ve become �now� once again. The disconnect has been bridged and we can live in two times at once.

The exact feeling I get from the songs above, I also get from the new I Love You But I�ve Chosen Darkness track, �According To Plan��except this time it�s from a buzz-worthy band of Texans on the equally buzz-worthy Secretly Canadian label. It sounds like early Icehouse or The Church, but we�re hearing it right now, at the time it�s released.

Maybe in another twenty-five years, a snotty indie kid will be dancing to I Love You But I�ve Chosen Darkness and imagining that he�s living through the sweet summer of 2006.

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There have been numerous conversations occurring on alternative culture blogs talking about whether pop music has reached the point of undeath, becoming merely a ghost of the past irrelevant to our times. This is made noticeable by the fact that pop is losing its capacity for nihilation, an ability to destroy all that it is. Pop music is at its most vibrant self when it is calling into question the very notion of what pop music is. This is why The Smiths kick ass, but the Stone Roses are schmucks, why the Talking Heads are geniuses, but The Tom Tom Club are lame. In short, pop today, with its clean production, its bubble gum lyrics and its short shelf life is in need of some destruction.

This is why pop music needs Destroyer now more than ever. Destroyer is the brainchild of Vancouver songsmith Dan Bejar. Most commonly known for his occasional appearances with The New Pornographers, with Destroyer Bejar plays with the same pop sensibilities The Pornos are known for, while at the same time calling into question those very sensibilities. Take �The Sublimation Hour� from his album Streethawk: A Seduction. On first listen this sounds like it would fit seamlessly in between any New Pornographers song. However, with the unstable guitar, the unpredictable song structure (the unexplainable exploding sound halfway through, anyone?), you get the sense that more is at work here than straight-ahead pop.

The success gained from his association with The New Pornographers, coupled with the very solid Streethawk album, resulted in a record deal with Merge Records. However, rather than reverting back to Streethawk, Bejar responded with the noisy quasi-improvised This Night and the tribute to the MIDI synth Your Blues. Many found these albums to be a departure, which I don�t quite buy. Bejar is far too smart for this. Rather, he decides to point to new possibilities that serve as a rupture to what he has thus far been concerned with (ie. pop music). Songs like �Holly Going Lightly� and �What Road� serve purely as moments in which we are able to receive a glimpse of what pop could be, and are thus what is now to be expected (in an unpredictable way) from Destroyer.

In comes Destroyer�s Rubies which serves as yet another reminder of how Destroyer has always had destruction as part of his plan. This time the target is more focused on the culture and music surrounding �indie rock.� While both This Night and Your Blues pointed to this attack at times, with Rubies Destroyer makes this an all-out war, attacking �indie rock� from within the confines of itself. �European Oils� or �Painter in Your Pocket� sound like a retreat back to rock. Yet, Destroyer will always hold something up only to tear it all apart. If we look at all that Destroyer has done thus far Rubies is allowed to rock only insofar as it isn�t forced to.

It�s the penchant for destruction that makes Destroyer so fundamental to the larger narrative of pop music. Pop (and this, of course, includes �indie rock� as well) is becoming far too settled, far too sure of itself for it to continue to offer us anything significant. Sure, bands like Broken Social Scene and the Arctic Monkeys are putting out good records. But aren�t they also lacking the ability to call into question their very place in pop culture, maybe even the relevance of pop culture itself? We need more Destroyer�s, more artists who are able to look at where they are and ask, �How did I get here?� and not necessarily like what they see.

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Weirdly, my introduction to Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher” did not come from the Blues Brothers cameo that indoctrinated others my age and spurred a Calloway renaissance; it came from Hugh Laurie. Laurie sang the song on TV as Bertie Wooster�P.G. Wodehouse’s platonic Edwardian gentleman, who did as much as anyone else to get me through middle school�and it was Laurie’s version I carted around on a burned CD and listened to on endless repeat. Later I got hold of Calloway’s “Blues Brothers” version, which plays a little like a reunited Pixies concert�good, but not, you know, it.

It is undoubtedly the original 1930 recording. A young, impossibly cool Calloway delivers the song’s smoke-filled slither with impeccable confidence, sounding like he’s grinning at all the right people�a group amongst which the listener, for three minutes, may count himself, which means something if you’re a chubby white middle-schooler who listens to Hugh Laurie. The call-and-response scatting (in live performances, when the audience served as the chorus, Calloway delighted in slowly increasing the phrases’ complexity, eventually leading his laughing audience past where they could follow) is one of the most recognizable and blatantly enjoyable moments in modern musical history, but it’s also one of the most influential, and not just in a general sense. More songs harken back directly to “Minnie the Moocher” than to anything else this side of “Eleanor Rigby”’s string arrangements; take, for example, Talking Heads’ “Swamp.”

“Swamp” is from Speaking in Tongues, whose 1983 release marked Talking Heads’ descent from the artistic pinnacle of the African-polyrhythm-obsessed Remain in Light and back to the band’s previous incarnation as a merely very good art-punk outfit. This isn’t to say that the album is bad�it’s mostly excellent, and “Swamp,” featuring an uncharacteristically growly, mumbling vocal performance from Byrne, is one of the highlights. Byrne’s affected New Orleans drawl approaches the foggy strut of Calloway’s delivery if it doesn’t quite have his ease, and the scatterbrained, Burroughsian lyrics typical of mid-period ‘Heads combine with the mumbling to make something that’s as close to scatting as the band ever got. The wordless chorus, like “Minnie”’s, builds itself around an ascending series of “hai-hai-hai”’s, and though Byrne’s growling goes unanswered it’s almost impossible not to join in yourself. Both “Minnie the Moocher” and “Swamp” are audience-participation songs; it’s just that Calloway brings his own audience, while Byrne is confident one will be provided.

If the ‘Heads invite an audience in, The Knife don’t acknowledge one exists. The Swedish electro-pop duo whose “Heartbeats” has been delighting Superball fans and the incurious in the hands of Jose Gonzales take a far more blatant Calloway reference and crack the mirror so severely that they find originality again. Claustrophobic, ultra-controlled, and deliberately terrifying, “One Hit” lurches into its “Minnie”-aping chorus with demonic glee, taking the familiar camaraderie of the original and turning it into an isolated exchange of shivering, low-frequency howls�first between siblings Karin and Olaf Dreijer, then between Olaf and himself�and sure, you can sing along, but you might be a little afraid. If “Minnie the Moocher” started as a recorded exchange between artist and audience, and was reinterpreted in “Swamp” as a half-finished template for a similar exchange, it comes to the end of the line in “One Hit” as a lonely funhouse nightmare�and it’s still almost impossible not to adore. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to listen to Hugh Laurie.

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When Sydney band Gerling first caught my attention back in 1998, they were pimply-faced teenagers wearing backpacks on ABC-TV�s Recovery and they sounded like nothing else. They shouted their cryptic free-association lyrics (�Tokyo, Denmark, Sweden!�) and bashed sounds out of second-hand synthesizers and beaten-up guitars. To my ears, only just waking up to the possibilities of experimental music, I thought they were unstoppable. This was pop music on the frontier.

On first listen, 1999�s Children of Telepathic Experiences was a bit too avant-garde for my developing tastes, but over time I grew to admire their revolutionary spirit and hear the melodies hidden inside their songs. They were simultaneously the best and the worst band you had ever heard and they didn�t care what you thought.

Despite building a loyal following in subsequent years, their decision to go ahead with the release of their When Young Terrorists Chase the Sun album post-September 11 nearly put to bed whatever commercial chances they had. Which is a shame, considering single �Dust Me Selecta� was a slab of four-on-the-flour disco house aimed straight for the mainstream.

This track seemed like a betrayal to staunchly indie fans like me. They release an album with a provocative title and then proceed to do the least provocative thing they could possibly do�a dance floor filler.

To top it all off, they also collaborated with Josh �totally addicted to bass� Abrahams and Kylie Minogue on �G-House Project.� In a world where we have Annie and Rachel Stevens, this doesn�t seem so shocking, but in 2001, Kylie Minogue was just Kylie Minogue. It seemed like a shameless grab at mainstream acceptance.

While the rest of the album is considerably less accessible, with touches of ambient, hip-hop, and post-punk, it was the �pop� tracks that stuck in the craw of the indie purists.

I�ve changed since then, as has a lot of the indie community (although some Stylus readers still had some harsh words to say about the pop tracks on the Best Singles of 2005 list), and I�ve come to acknowledge that pop and �interesting� need not be antonyms.

Now I listen to Terrorists and realise it�s not the noisecore tracks that were truly revolutionary and subversive�it was the pop tracks. I was attracted to Gerling�s individualism and refusal to be categorised and yet I was caught out when they stuck a big finger up to the fans that weren�t willing to follow them wherever they wanted to go.

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I�ve never tried Hood River vodka, but goddamn if I don�t want to after hearing, from John Darnielle�s own lips, that it is �the source of some truly brutal vodka.� Anyone who has had the privilege of seeing Mr. Darnielle live knows that he the knack for elevating his own material well beyond the �nasal guy with good lyrics and manic acoustic guitar strumming� niche. This particular Stypod entry accompanies The Mountain Goats�s Tallahassee Playing God article�culled from live tracks all freely available (with John�s blessing) from http://www.archive.org. Mixed together, they include all of the indelible banter that Robert Pollard only wishes he could match.

While this particular mix contains some of the best songs, it also captures some of Darnielle�s most touching moments: the just-breaking vocals of �Tallahassee� and �Game Shows Touch Our Lives,� the final verses of �International Small Arms Traffic Blues,� �Alpha Incipiens� and �Alpha Omega,� and a whole legion of crazed Goats fans screaming �I hope you die! I hope we all die!� on �No Children.�

Tracklist
01. Tallahassee (San Francisco, 2004)

02. Southwood Plantation Road (San Francisco, 2004)
03. Alpha Gelida (Duke University, 1997)
04. First Few Desperate Hours (Brooklyn, 2005)
05. Game Shows Touch Our Lives (Brooklyn, 2005)
06. Alpha Incipiens (Mt. Pleasant, 2004)

07. Alpha Double Negative/Going To Catalina (Chicago, 2004)
08. International Small Arms Traffic Blues (Chicago, 2004)
09. Alphonse Mambo (Chicago, 2004)
10. No Children (Chicago, 2004)
11. See America Right (Chicago, 2004)

12. Old College Try (Olympia, 2005)
13. Oceanographer�s Choice (Chicago, 2004)
14. Alpha In Tauris (Macrock, 2003)

15. Alpha Omega (Mt. Pleasant, 2004)

Read the rest of Peter Galassi & Nate DeYoung�s Playing God of The Mountain Goats� Tallahassee here. Buy the original version of Tallahassee here.

It’s Valentine’s Day this week, so what the hell�I suppose Stypod readers have earned a couple of love songs.

The Weakerthans - The Reasons
If you’re going to make a Valentine’s mix for someone, this song is almost compulsory. And I’m assuming that if you’re reading this, you know John K. Samson’s penchant for a great line�well, this one’s full of them.

Bloc Party - So Here We Are (Four Tet Remix)
The original song is a really powerful love song, but the Four Tet version is this mesmerizing, beautiful thing. “You’re the one I love” rises above lyric to become a declaration, a refrain of unmatched strength and intensity. OK, that makes it come across as creepy.

Metric - Calculation (Theme)
Let’s face it: Metric’s new album sucks. There’s nothing on it as listenable as the entirety of Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? And hey, guess what seals the deal: “Calculation (Theme),” one of the most sublime, beautiful love songs put to record in the last few years.

There you go, ladies and gents. Now make with the loving!

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It�s happened again. I�m not special in this, I realize�it�s the plight of all music obsessives, really�but it raises my self-righteous ire every time. Another artist I used to worship as a cult hero in my early adolescence, proud of how misunderstood and underappreciated she was, has been appropriated by the indie rock mainstream. Kate Bush, for perhaps the first time in her career, is cool.

Maybe what�s happened is a case of cultural nostalgia finally giving a piece of music history its due. There must have been more of us than I realized who, knowing we would�ve been ridiculed for liking Kate Bush by our peers, never let on�half not wanting to cast our proverbial pearls before middle school swine, half terrified of what the consequences of doing so would have been. Admitting your love for Kate Bush in the 90s, as a young teen, would�ve been to let on that you didn�t listen exclusively to Nirvana. With her glorious excesses, the affectation of her vocals, the literary pretensions, the costumed performativity of it all, Kate Bush was even considered a little too prog for most in the 80s.

Beyond the concerns of the middle school cafeteria, Kate Bush was unique among artists I listened to in the way she resisted acceptance by anything but a cult audience. The 90s being (grunge aside) the heyday of straightforward college rock like Pavement and the Pixies, even the more sophisticated indie set had little patience for Bush�s antics. At the same time, the Lilith Fair phenomenon was giving rise to a crop of artists so obviously influenced by Bush that it seemed sacrilegious in my young and earnest mind that she was not given much credit by the mainstream music press. When Maxwell covered �This Woman�s Work� in the late 90s, and I had to endure people raving about �that new Maxwell song,� I was certain that Bush would be all but forgotten by pop music history and she could be, well, mine. A secret I didn�t have to try to keep.

Of course, this is very the feeling that music obsessives thrive and build their sense of community on�being one of the few who know and really understand. It�s a feeling of ownership, a method of consuming art whereby it is subsumed; music becomes part of one�s identity in much the same way food enters the bloodstream and becomes part of the body.

You can imagine my mixture of excitement and indignation, then, when critics� darlings The Futureheads covered one of my favorite Kate Bush songs, �The Hounds of Love� in 2005. Surely this will get no attention, I thought, and calmed a little. But it was a considerable hit on college radio and ranked high on critics� year-end lists, including those here on Stylus. It�s not that I dislike the cover�it�s just that it�s my song. Then Kate Bush released her first album in 12 years, to a surprisingly warm critical reception. Maybe, I thought, it would flop and no one would pay attention. But it was no longer any use resisting�Kate Bush was a fully rediscovered pop phenomenon.

In the end, reason wins out. I�m happy. After so many years of operating on the margins of popular music, Bush is finally getting the attention she deserves. Here�s to all of us in the secret Kate Bush super-fanclub who can say �I listened to her when��

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For all their retroactively awarded praise, New Jersey’s terminally unlucky Wrens have yet to receive a thorough public excavation of their back catalogue. 2003’s The Meadowlands was a masterpiece, yes, and so was 1996’s Secaucus, albeit a jumpier, scatterbrained one not quite worth the $60 Amazon asks for it; but one gets the impression of treading forgotten territory when one queues up 1994’s Silver, a static-filled sprawl of a record which sounds on first listen and for the most part on every subsequent one like an impenetrable mess, and is, but which with patience yields a few nuggets of more than merely historical interest.

Most of Silver’s bright spots come when the fuzzy shoegaze influence fades, leaving the punky hyperactivity that was the Wrens’ pre-exhaustion trademark to shine through the way it would on Secaucus: the three-speed “Darlin’ Darlin’” lurches from howling machine-gun panic to trembling paranoia like it’s trying to keep its head above water, its struggles forming a tight, self-sustaining three minutes prototypical of later songs like “Surprise, Honeycomb.” On a less frantic note, “Grey Complexion,” sounding like a minimalist Smashing Pumpkins, wanders in and out of a dreamily aggressive guitar riff weirdly reminiscent of the dungeon music from the 1986 “Legend of Zelda”; and “From His Lips,” atypically unfettered by fuzz, redeems its awkwardly sardonic ledge-jumper lyrics (which include a poor enunciation of the phrase “clear tourist”) with a slowly degenerating churn that eventually trails off into a single metallic guitar.

Silver isn’t a great album�it isn’t a particularly good one�but finding the spikes of clarity amongst the homogenous tumult is akin to watching a chick peck its way out of an egg, especially now we know the little bird’s destined for great things. Secaucus is a shivery, unduplicatable exultation of an album, and The Meadowlands a rich work of exhausted triumph, but the seeds of both can be found in the Wrens’ debut, and they remind us that, though we’re entitled to wait for the masterpieces, we’d do well to at least pay attention to impenetrable messes.

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