The Prom is up there somewhere Desaparecidos, apparently

Although local emo stalwarts Juno are always a pretty good draw, the majority of the excitement tonight was definitely focused on the Desaparecidos (say "Des-para-seedos"), Bright Eyes' frontman Conor Oberst's new "rock" side project. Although Oberst is certainly no stranger to the jump-around-and-scream-a-lot side of the indie rock sphere (his first band, Commander Venus, started when Oberst was barely 14, featured lots of loud guitars and tuneless hollering), these days he's obviously much better known for Bright Eyes, his navel-gazing, singer-songwriterly main project.

Up first was up-and-coming Seattle band The Prom, two members of which originally hail from Oberst's hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. The core of the band is singer/pianist James Mendenhall, bassist David Broecker and drummer Joel Brown; tonight marked the live debut of synth/sampler maestro Evan Morris. Because of their lineup (piano/bass/drums), The Prom are often compared to Ben Folds Five, though sicj comparisons are both inaccurate and shortsighted. It would be more accurate to say something along the lines of "if Randy Newman decided to start writing straightforward love songs, and got together with the Beatles' rhythm section..." Well, perhaps that's taking it a bit too far, but you get the idea -- amazingly catchy pop songs featuring consistently morose lyrics rife with self-examination. The boys played many songs from their new record, Under the Same Stars, due in May from Barsuk Records and likely to knock the socks off anyone who's heard either of their first two releases (and hopefully, lots of people who haven't). Although the band are usually a bunch of jokesters on stage, tonight they kept the witty banter to a minimum and plowed through their set, several times barely even pausing between songs. The result was a nonstop rush of brilliant, depressive pop, buoyed by Mendenhall's distinctive, slightly nasal voice, the very Beatlesque interplay between Broecker and Brown, and Morris' keyboard flourishes (his presence in the band is ostensibly to recreate many of the overdubs that the band laid down in the studio on their new album. Strings, horns, organs, you name it -- it's all reproduced by Morris with a keyboard and a sampler. Impressive, to say the least). The crowd ate it up, and responded with warm applause and cheering -- whenever the band stopped for long enough to let it in.

By the time The Prom concluded their set, the sold-out theater resembled a sauna more than a rock venue, so I and many other audience members filed outside for a breath or three of fresh air. After half an hour, Desaparecidos took the stage to uproarious applause, lurching headfirst into an angular, energetic, anthemic rock song, which featured Conor's vocals at full throaty scream pretty much throughout the song, and was accompanied by a great deal of jumping around and caroming from one end of the stage to the other, especially by the bassist and the second guitarist. To anyone who's heard Commander Venus, the sound of Desaparecidos isn't that much of a stretch -- except that in the six years since Commander Venus called it quits, Oberst has matured immensely as a songwriter. Desaparecidos strike a blend between the heavy, angular math rock of Saddle Creek labelmates Cursive and the more instantly catchy pop/punk of, say, the Pixies. In contrast to the harrowingly personal songwriting style that Oberst purveys in Bright Eyes, Desaparecidos' songs are much less personal and more political in nature. This is both good and bad -- while this approach avoids the more cringeworthy aspects of some of Bright Eyes' most heart-on-sleeve material, it also reveals Oberst's observations on the world around him as a tad naive. However, when there's as much spastic action going on onstage as there was this evening, there's not really much room to bitch about the finesse and acuity of Oberst's social critiques.

There were a few minor things that bugged me about the band's performance, however. Desaparecidos was basically conceived as an excuse for Conor to rock out, which makes the band seem one-dimensional. They failed to lend much in the way of variety or dynamics to their songs, all of which were full-throttle, all the time, with Conor screaming his head off throughout. The thing that makes a band like Cursive so successful at what they do (apart from Tim Kasher's amazing songwriting) is their impeccable arrangements and their supreme skill with dynamics. Although Oberst has displayed similar skills with these concepts in Bright Eyes, it seems like he has yet to fully realize them with his new band. Yeah, they rocked. Yeah, they were entertaining. Yeah, they put out. However, despite all this, it seemed just a tad contrived, as if Oberst was sort of reining in the band's sound in order to say, "This is my rock band, and we fucking rock." They do, but it would be nice if he realized that the rock is more compelling when it's a little more varied.

Juno played next. I would be happy to provide a more in-depth analysis than this, but I must confess that I left shortly after the band's first song. The oppressive heat of the venue, coupled with the fact that I've seen Juno approximately eighteen times over the past few years (and they usually play pretty much the same set every time they play -- c'mon, guys, how about some new songs?), did not make sticking around a particularly attractive option. For those who hadn't seen Juno before, tonight's performance probably bordered on revelatory. For those who have seen Juno before, my bet is that the only surprise was the amazing similarity between this show and the last time they saw Juno play. However, I heard from a friend the next day that the band had announced that this would be their last show for some time, and that they were going to take a break for a while. Hopefully the break will give them time to write new material.

Article and photos by Jeremy Schneyer.