Rainer Maria: Long Knives Drawn

Rainer Maria's first few releases unleashed an overwhelming abundance of post-adolescent angst, delivered with clashing male-female vocals, clanging guitars, a postgraduate vocabulary, and precious poeticism that walked the thin line separating high drama from Dashboard Confessional-style purpleness. But as the trio has evolved, moving from its Wisconsin birthplace to its Brooklyn home and increasing its national profile, it's tightened and slickened its sound, shifting vocal duties almost entirely to Caithlin De Marrais, staying ever more on key, and toning down its most rampant thesaurus-mining. Any time bands polish off their rough edges, they run the risk of entrenching themselves in a mediocre middle ground, but there's a lot to be said for the more refined Rainer Maria. If there were any doubts about singer-bassist De Marrais' evolution into a powerful frontwoman, they're erased in Long Knives Drawn's first three songs ("Mystery And Misery," "Long Knives," "Ears Ring"), a thrilling opening blast that combines indelible hooks with a subtle sense of mischief that Rainer Maria hasn't exactly worn on its sleeve in the past. In terms of subject matter, Knives sticks mostly to sincere and straight-faced examinations of relationships, but by keeping the discussions on a human scale and mostly weeding out the 10-dollar words, its songs possess more resonance than ever. As De Marrais and company get older, they're learning that the less they wear their intelligence on their sleeves, the smarter they get.