Few times in my life have I felt as awestruck as I did the night I witnessed 764-HERO singer John Atkins bawl out a wasted, combative customer who struck the doorman of the bar at which Atkins tends.

Atkins is the epitome of affable, a big teddy bear with a friendly greeting for anyone who enters the popular Pine/Pike drinking establishment. At that moment, however, the room went completely silent as the embodiment of simpatico flew out from behind the well and dispatched the awful customer out onto the street. I was so shocked and impressed, I pulled a camera out of my purse and took a picture.

I felt the same way about Atkins the first time I saw 764-HERO play live. Gone again was the teddy-bear version of the man I'd seen behind the bar a thousand times, and in its place was a singer who now embodied all I love about a great frontman: passion and a conviction to conveying exactly what it is he loves about the music he's playing. I was dumbstruck, awestruck--and 764-HERO never sounded the same to me again. What I'd gauged to be merely a good band, simply by listening to the albums, had suddenly become something much bigger and intrinsically vital to my own existence as a lover of Northwest rock.

Originally a two-piece (Atkins on guitar and Polly Johnson on drums), 764-HERO is a pop band at heart, but its lyrical weight and instrumental propulsion lends a visceral complexity that grows with each album. 1996's Salt Sinks & Sugar Floats and 1997's We're Solids showcased the band's striking mastery of doing a whole lot with very little, but 1998's Get Here and Stay, and more specifically, 2000's Weekends of Sound (all were released on Seattle's Up Records), found 764-HERO with a new forcefulness, a ballast provided by the addition of a bass player (James Bertram of Red Stars Theory) who pile-drives his contributions.

Released on New York's Tiger Style Records, Nobody Knows This Is Everywhere is 764-HERO's newest and most thoughtful album, a lovely--there's no other word for it--disc splashed with studied texture changes, well-placed lulls, and the kind of enthusiasm and provocation that makes an album invigorating. And although Atkins himself is quick to admit that he prefers writing abstract lyrics, where interpretations vary according to the listener's perceptions, there's a track on Everybody Knows This Is Everywhere that is, once again, awe-striking in its directness. Unmistakably about terminal illness, death, and a tribute to a lost friend, "Skylines" is a tearjerker.

"That is about a friend who died," explains Atkins. It's hard for me to look him in the eye as he answers because I think I know who he's talking about, and it's obvious the loss still hurts Atkins deeply. "It was really difficult for me to write it in that it wasn't abstract. Most of the songs I write are not about one specific thing, the lyrics aren't concrete, and they're full of double entendres, and can mean different things to different people. But this song was about something real and I wanted to say it in the right way."

A piano tinkles unadorned as Atkins begins, "Before you go into all of this I think you should know/we all end up at the hospital waiting to go." "Skylines" ultimately seems to be saying that there is no master plan, and that there can never be an explanation meaningful enough to fill the void left by someone's permanent absence. Still, Atkins' simple, heartfelt memorial is a welcome reminder to adorn emptiness with memories: "I can remember you overlooking skylines for a change/I can still hear you laugh at something I say without a word/such a dirty world." I ask if the song might be difficult for 764-HERO to perform live. Atkins says he's going to give it a go, and see what happens.

Robin Perringer steps in as bassist on Nobody Knows, and his playing is in stark reflection to that of Bertram, lending the new album much of its deep-seated restraint. It's yet another revolution from an always-enigmatic band, and again I am awestruck by the transformation.