A Dignified Comeback

In the ’90s, Polvo were one of the few American groups striving to
create a new lingua of rock. Their dialect definitely owed a
modest debt to Sonic Youth, but Polvo (the North Carolina quartet now consisting of Ash Bowie, Dave Brylawski, Steve Popson,
and Brian Quast) leaned more heavily on East Asian
accents—accents all the more exotic and strange because these
guys probably never visited the region. In an interview in The
Stranger last year, Bowie observed that his and Brylawski’s piquant
guitar sounds resulted from “a combination of using cheap, shitty
guitars and goofing around.” Oddly enough, Polvo’s “goofing” resulted
in some of the most scintillating rock soundscaping and songsmithing of
the Bill Clinton era.

On In Prism (Merge), their first album since 1997’s
Shapes, Polvo sound like they’ve upgraded their equipment since
crucial mid-’90s recordings like Today’s Active Lifestyles and
Celebrate the New Dark Age. That means that those patented,
wonky guitar tones no longer materialize. For some, those eccentric
efflorescences defined Polvo. Obviously, though, Polvo are much
more than advanced-calculus riffs played in weird tunings. They were
keen tunesmiths, too. For proof, check out “In This Life” and “Solitary
Set,” two of the rock underground’s most exultant, well-crafted songs.
Here in 2009, Polvo have made a solid set of aging-with-dignity rock on
In Prism, proving that they’re still cunning composers.

In Prism‘s melodies are fairly muted (graying
distinguishingly at the temples, you could say), the tempos relatively
subdued, and the bizarre guitar tunings toned down yet still skewing
toward a radiant spangle. “Right the Relation” starts the album with a
brawny, down-tuned attack, but the song gradually accrues more typical
serpentine melodic flourishes and unpredictable halting-and-surging
dynamics. Bowie’s voice remains a pleasantly nondescript font of
cryptic verbiage declaiming in the middle distance. The piece is epic
yet somewhat restrained, like most of In Prism. The disc peaks
on “Beggar’s Bowl,” in which crystalline guitars toll hypnotically like
prime-time Terje Rypdal, while the rest of the band manifests a stomp
akin to Led Zeppelin’s “Trampled Under Foot.” The song’s climax is so
thrilling, you won’t even miss the fucked-up tones of those “shitty”
guitars.