Cursive: The Ugly Organ

The indie-rock subgenre known as "emo" comes in a confusing, often contradictory variety of flavors, but two variations pop up most: the dreamy, textured, sometimes acoustic-based confessional, and the edgy, abrasive spazz-rocker. The Omaha punk stalwarts in Cursive pursue both paths simultaneously, bridging the gap between the art-scuff of Les Savy Fav and the Dylan-esque straggle of their fellow Nebraskans in Bright Eyes. For The Ugly Organ, singer, songwriter, and guitarist Tim Kasher builds on the conceptual coup of his 2000 death-of-a-marriage song-cycle Domestica and the mellower musical adventures of the 2001 EP Burst And Bloom. As on Domestica, Kasher rips himself open for The Ugly Organ, chastising himself for turning his romantic pain into music, then noting how his sensitivity has proven to be an effective tool for getting women into bed, even if those women worry that they're going to be turned into songs. To match the reflexive, self-skewering mood of the lyrics, Cursive whips up a ferocious noise peppered with bursts of melody and orchestral interludes. The sound is jolting and a little scary, in the vein of psychodrama post-punk like The Cure's Pornography and Public Image Ltd.'s The Flowers Of Romance, but nowhere near as dirge-like or monotonous. While Kasher courts pretension with lines like "Weatherman / do you feel / Is it stormy inside of your veins," his bandmates chop up thrash, funk, soul, folk, and chamber pop, stringing together an impressive range of sounds and tones into one virtually seamless suite. One of Kasher's bandmates is Ted Stevens, formerly of sadcore cult act Lullaby For The Working Class, and Stevens' skill with long, multi-part compositions surely helped in shaping The Ugly Organ's complex structure, in which the individual songs matter less than the overall feel. The record has flow and momentum, and just when its alternating harshness and euphony risks outstaying its welcome, the drama ends with "Staying Alive," an escalating 10-minute vamp that builds from guitar and cello to pounding drums and white noise before a choir enters, chanting "the worst is over" as the song slowly fades. It's a powerful conclusion to a potent piece of rock art.