Forget the recession, let's dance!
by
Todd Pitman
It's a daring thing when a band steps out on a limb in a scene so lovingly devoted to its old standbys. In the Land of 10,000 Acoustic Cafés, where mellow folk-rock and shoegaze reign supreme, Military Special's auspicious beginnings have been nothing short of a paean to the increasingly receptive Twin Cities' music scene; and their debut full-length Civil Union is one gnarling, thrashing beast of a record.
Whereas last year's self-titled EP bubbled up with a more tweeter-friendly pop sound, Civil Union more fairly reduplicates the energy of the band's live show, and showcases their knack for interweaving complex, overdriven guitar parts with programmed dance beats, live percussion, and Funk-era bass and synths. The whole thing is set in this vicious, analog minor key, and every note dogpiles on top of the last until your heart starts to beat in time.
At first listen, surefooted quickies like "Fall Back," "Say What You Want," and "We're Science" are what give the album its overall structure, but it is thanks to a handfull of expertly-placed sonic easter eggs—the '60s Rickenbacker of "Casual," the lo-fi Casio blip of "Factory Floors," the Paisley sway of "City Lights,"—that the album truly warrants playback. My favorite track might be "1971," and its straight-faced, outer-space disco flamboyance. The groove almost belies the song's political slant; singer Joe Schweigert name-drops the year in which 23 Western companies joined OPEC, President Nixon implemented Vietnamization, and the Weather Underground bombed the US Capitol building.
And somehow, it works: The album is both smirking and sincere. In between admonitions of our demure society and potshots at bungled past legislation is a subtext that, for all the doom and gloom, we can just get together and dance and not worry about it too much. It's advice the Twin Cities seem to be taking, judging by the band's recent local success.
These days, a successful "all-over" debut like Civil Union doesn't come around as often as you'd hope. The LP clocks in at precisely 35 minutes, and moves along at an impressive clip, but within its vein—whatever it is—Civil Union covers ground more effectively than the breathy, hourlong, filler-laden albums of the mainstream, while at the same time bringing a welcome new sound to the Twin Cities' ever-burgeoning musical vocabulary.
