Enon
w/Irving, Anna Oxygen (late show only)
Tues Oct 7, Chop Suey, $10. Two shows: 5 pm (all ages), 9 pm (21+).

Two spins through Enon's newest release, Hocus Pocus, and I'm faced with a dilemma that always fucks me in the ass no matter what direction I turn: Will it reveal cohesiveness after repeated plays? Or will my affection for the band and my desire to feel said cohesiveness incline me toward feeling it anyway?

I think this is what it must have been like back in the '80s, when it became impossible to hear a band like Talking Heads as a unit rather than as four musicians who wanted to play different rock genres simultaneously. Changing from one album to the next is one thing, but changing within the tracks of the same album is a hard one to gauge, damned if you do and damned if you don't. It's like it's 1999 again and I'm standing next to the moral crevasse presented by Beck's Midnite Vultures, trying to decide if the disc did, in fact, suck, or if I just hadn't listened to it enough. Do I dive in head first, or descend the crack step by step?

Enon's Believo! introduced fans of Skeleton Key and the defunct Braniac to a new band featuring members of both. The spring 2000 release was quirky, but on the whole a punchy, melody-packed blend of techno, new wave, and pop punk. "Conjugate the Verbs" jumped straight into your bloodstream and released a tank of adrenaline Whitney Houston could've lived off for a week. The rest of the tracks were nearly as addictive.

In 2002, High Society ratcheted up the tension a notch, and threw a curveball in the form of former Blonde Redhead member Toko Yasuda, whose cool, breathy vocals could turn to ice in a heartbeat.

Hocus Pocus sounds divided--the jump from Yasuda's tinkly techno to John Schmersal's elastic pop punk and lusciously Grifters-like guitar rock is a strain. Yet when track nine starts, Hocus Pocus kicks into high gear, and it would have come flying across the finish line if it wasn't for the bummer title track, the final song that's probably a joke but still ruins the race. Eight more spins failed to change my mind--like my reaction to it, the disc is all over the place.

kathleen@thestranger.com