The Beatings, Holding on to Hand Grenades

Ah, yes. This is what I find myself wishing rock sounded like all the time. Which says something about my musical tastes, I guess, because this album sounds like a long-lost gem from that fertile period of the mid ’90s when indie-rock ruled college radio and bands like Superchunk, Poster Children, and Arcwelder held sway. The roaring guitars, the spoken/shouted vocals, the driving, not-quite-punk rhythms, it’s all there, and I can’t resist. Tracks like “A Responsible Person” and “Feel Good Ending” surge and churn, the guitar lines and chords weaving in and out of one another while vocalist/guitarists Eldridge Rodriguez and Tony Skalicky speak-shout wry, sarcastic, bitterly smart observations over the pummeling drums and bass; I can practically smell the stale beer and sweat-stained Fugazi t-shirts.

At the end of the day, what’s most refreshing about Holding on to Hand Grenades is that, nostalgia aside, it’s indie-rock stripped down to its purest form. There are no emo-ballads here, no pop-punk bursts, no garage-rock or nü-New Wave pretensions, no samples, no pretty-boy looks or moppish haircuts — it’s just full-on, we-don’t-give-a-fuck-what-you-think rock that knows you don’t have to sing sweetly to have melody. Take “Cointelpro,” for example — it’s a wild, anxious track that still manages to sound angry and exuberant at the same time, marrying a gorgeously understated melodic line to frenzied, pounding rock the way Hüsker Dü did in their most sublime moments. It’s nice to hear somebody do that frantic, desperate-sounding kind of rock but hang onto their sense of fun throughout. That’s probably the biggest way in which The Beatings resemble DIY heroes Poster Children, actually — no matter what they’re doing, both bands sound like they’re enjoying the hell out of it.

The music’s dynamic as hell on the one hand, jumping in and out of the rock guitars and quiet vocals seemingly at a whim, but on the other hand, when the band grabs hold of a guitar line, they ride it for all its worth, churning along at a relentless, hypnotic pace. The songs shift and change direction, as on “Upstate Flashbacks,” which starts off like a meandering Sonic Youth outtake but transmutes into something that sounds weirdly like a distorted cover of a Bee Thousand track, or “Stockholm Syndrome Relapse,” which begins with breathy female vocals (courtesy of bassist Erin Dalbec) but morphs rapidly into a dead ringer for Vee Vee-era Archers of Loaf. “Scorched Earth Policy” does something similar, transforming in mid-stride from quirky, noodly stomping into speeding, urgent, Replacements-esque rock. And best of all, whatever twist or turn the Beatings take, they’re able to make it come off as perfectly natural.

Not all of the specific tracks really stick in my head, I have to admit, but I’m finding that I don’t mind, because I get that pleasant, head-bobbing-and-smiling feeling the whole way through Hand Grenades. I mean, if I get buzzed on Jameson’s throughout the course of an evening, is it all a waste if I can’t remember what each individual shot felt like? Of course not; sometimes the buzz (whether from alcohol or music, although I generally lean toward the latter) is the critical part.