The Terror Sheets w/ Revolutionary Hydra, Suretoss
Crocodile, Tues Sept 11, $6

It begins simply enough--a tumble of guitar notes and a chiming keyboard. But by the time a single verse is done and the barest semblance of a chorus is on the verge, Six Months Spent in the Light Hearted Part of the Dark Side of Town has hooked you with its simple, candid beauty. A product of new three-piece the Terror Sheets, the brief demo is a lovely, rolling landscape of woe scattered with stark formations of hope; a minefield strewn with confusing emotions, aching memories, and painful observations.

On the demo, the Terror Sheets are Joe Syverson playing guitars, vocals, drums, and bass, and Chris Early on Fender Rhodes and percussion. Syverson and Early both figured in the now-defunct Transmarine, a blurry, rambling, shoegazer-influenced rock band. In the Terror Sheets, the duo employ a far subtler approach, traversing emotional territory with a light step and an economic respect for sentiment. It's the short, fast lines that take your breath away on this disc, the kind that get you looking backward while marveling at the speed with which they passed by. In "Sister States," Syverson is describing the monotonous drive to work and the tools in his box, when suddenly the listener is struck by the line "The heart is always built before it's sold." It's a marvelous line, and happily, lines like that abound throughout the Terror Sheets' slight four-song offering, to devastating effect.

Nearly a year ago, long before I heard the Terror Sheets, a few folks were gathered at someone's house after hours. As talk turned to music and, inevitably, exploded relationships and their treacherous aftermath, Syverson said something to me so personal and stunningly candid that I've held it close to my heart ever since. It was a childlike observation, and Syverson probably forgot about it moments after he spoke it. But for me, it remains a bolster I pull out in my mind whenever I need to take note that inspiration can come from the most unexpected sources, and that sometimes the people who are closest to you see you the least clearly.

Six Months Spent in the Light Hearted Part of the Dark Side of Town is the product of a songwriter who is blessed with the kind of sight that readily takes in the observations many of us run from desperately and blindly, arms outstretched in frenzied search for the first thing that will offer us shelter from what we don't want to, or cannot, see.

Though the Terror Sheets really only became a band in March, Syverson and Early have been fooling around with the idea for a year and a half. "Transmarine broke up and we still wanted to play together," says Syverson, "so we just got in the basement and went away at it. April came around and my roommate Eric [Judy, of Modest Mouse] wanted to record us, so we recorded it at home. It gave us a lot of freedom; we'd just wake up and begin working on whatever we wanted to work on. Eric's a really good person to work with like that."

How does something so spare translate to a three-piece (a drummer, Brian Hoyne, now rounds out the band) in a live setting? The same but different, according to Syverson. "We try to fill the gaps live, the stuff that wouldn't be there without overdubs. But we try to have variety in our set. Some of the stuff is quieter than it is on the demo and some of it is louder. I guess it's the same sound, but it's just different."

Syverson says the Terror Sheets plan on recording a full-length debut in the winter, and with at least two local labels showing interest in the band, it's no stretch of the imagination that the project will be backed by someone other than its members.

When I compliment the singer on Six Months Spent in the Light Hearted Part of the Dark Side of Town, he stops me mid-sentence to tell me he's blushing-- something I'd never have known, considering we're speaking over the phone. I ask Syverson about the band's name, and he tells me it has to do with sleep anxiety and how that reflects on your day. His songs have the same effect. Hear them once and you'll be thinking about them all day.