So Many Dynamos, The Loud Wars

The Loud Wars is one of those albums that makes me want to go dig out an album I used to play ’til it felt like the CD player laser would burn out; in this case, the album they make me want to go grab is The Dismemberment Plan’s 2001 classic, Change. It’s a disc I’d be willing to bet the guys in So Many Dynamos know intimately, and I can’t help but think of D-Plan when I hear the Dynamos’ take on smart, half-broken/twisted, synth-tinged pop.

Not that that’s all there is, mind you — the guitars wriggle and intertwine like snakes, the edges of the songs are sharp and cagey like the best Jawbox tracks, the synths and “flat” sung/shouted vocals call back to fellow Midwesterners The Anniversary (and Braid, at times), and the rhythms bump and grind along seductively, bringing to mind The Rapture’s near-funk. Crushed together into a whole, it’s an alluring combination of sounds, witty and brooding and funky all at once. A few tracks fall somewhat flat — “Friendarmy” and “It’s Gonna Rain,” for two — but for the most part, So Many Dynamos wield their sound effectively, marrying intricate, self-referencing lyricism with the best post-rock I’ve heard since, say, Bloc Party, to which they also happen to bear a weird resemblance.

“Glaciers” is shifting and anthemic, with a nicely sweet uplift to it, and “The Novelty of Haunting” is a well-crafted look at what happens when you suddenly, um, die, somewhat like Armor For Sleep’s What to Do When You Are Dead, except that the Dynamos skip the tortured emo posturing and opt instead for confusion, dismay, and then exploring the benefits of undeath, all to the sound of turbulent, spastic guitars. “New Bones” makes me think of the D-Plan (again) taking on The Rapture in some kind of head-to-head music war, all synths, chiming guitars, and Faint-esque atmosphere. I find myself seriously digging the sound of vocalist/keyboardist Aaron Stovall’s keys on “Oh, The Devastation!”, too — it’s awesomely thick and ragged-sounding, a perfect fit with the thundering drums and No Knife sci-fi guitars.

The unifying thread throughout, though, has to be the paranoiac feel that kicks off with the clanging guitar lines and busy drums/synths of “Artifacts of Sound.” When Stovall pleads on that track, “The record doesn’t lie/ So what friend could the record be? / What secrets could the record keep?”, it sounds like he’s desperate for answers of some kind, for somebody real to confide in. That nervous, self-effacing fear persists across The Loud Wars, rearing its head again in “The Novelty of Haunting,” where Stovall admits that he wants to see his friends but doesn’t want to be a “creep,” a spooky, unwanted shadow hanging around the room. On “No Bones,” Stovall flatly declares that he and the subject of the song could agree if only that person could stop believing in him; I’m sensing a weird pattern of self-loathing and mistrust.

That pattern’s unfortunate for the Dynamos guys, but it’s my (and your) gain, because it lends an intriguing weight to what could’ve easily been nothing more than a D-Plan retread. The nervous, twitchy energy makes me think of my own hometown heroes Bring Back The Guns (especially on “Keep It Simple”) — which seems apt, since the bands shared a split-7″ a while back, with “It’s Gonna Rain” as the So Many Dynamos track — and it’s what makes The Loud Wars work, propelling the whole thing along.