Increasingly, modern indie-rockers have been leaving behind the careening, bellowing, eccentric-studio-rat model of the '90s for a sound that's tighter and slicker. Seattle's Minus The Bear is one of those remodeled indies, and the band's third album, Menos El Oso, is an object lesson in how to use the new style. Beginning with the blippy, skittering "The Game Needed Me," Menos El Oso establishes an approach that's simultaneously poppy and subtly progressive, in the mode of The Police and latter-day King Crimson. "The Game Needed Me" works with insinuating rhythms and string-bending guitars, while frontman Jake Snider mutters and moans a set of declarative statements in the voice of a generation: "We're all just selling time," "We've got a lot to lose," and so on. The song might be a critique of materialism, but what lingers are the spooky atmospherics and clattering percussion. "The Game Needed Me" is the aural equivalent of a shadowy, deserted street and a moment of existential terror.
"Memphis & 53rd" tells an equally foreboding story of panicked lovers, while "The Fix" delineates the difference between humans and automatons, and "Michio's Death Drive" makes oblivion sound inevitable and acceptable. The intricately woven guitars and propulsive beats that anchor Menos El Oso aren't just "math rock" exercises, they're a vital mode of expression, tracing the modern worry that the individual is being slowly absorbed—by religion, government, corporations, or something more sinister. Prior to this record, Minus The Bear had a reputation for jokey song titles and bloodless precision, but here, the band reinvents itself as a purveyor of nightmares. If this is the future of indie-rock, the future looks darkly compelling.
Those who prefer indie nostalgia should cock an ear to Minneapolis quintet Hockey Night, whose sophomore album Keep Guessin' sounds like the work of an exceptional Pavement tribute act. Paul Sprangers' Malkmus-esque yelp—coupled with the sloppy martial drums and tuneless chicken-pluck guitar of the album-opening "Get Real"—calls to mind the summer of "Summer Babe," as does the galloping, allusive "For Guys' Eyes Only" and the romantic slacker sing-along "Greet The Dawn." Sprangers and company have more range and skill than their predecessors, which allows them to bring some subtlety and grace to stoner ballads like "Renegades," but regardless, Hockey Night channels its talents through the virtues of quick-bash and from-the-gut. If this is the past of indie rock, the past still looks rosy.