"Cadence" kicks off this quartet's second album with a bang: it opens with crisp, propulsive drums and clanging guitars, a Brit-invasion bassline provides the melody, vocalist Billy Peake comes on strong like prime Paul Weller, and it all builds to a fantastic chorus: "You're falling out of rhythm now / but you'll get older / just a step or two ahead / you'll find your cadence." It's nearly as solid as your favorite barn-burner by The Kinks, The Jam or XTC, and even enlivened by a little cello here and there. For a bunch of young guys from Columbus, it's impressive.

If nothing else on Engaged In Labor is as instantly contagious, nothing fails, either -- except maybe for a number ("Advice At Night") that's played on an intentionally detuned piano, but consequently sounds a little out of tune melodically as well. Program that one out and you've got indie power pop that's emanating Matthew Sweet-ness on the surface and an effective, insistent rhythm section underneath. The band's calling card is the chiming, back-and-forth vocal interplay between Peake and multi-instrumentalist Dan Gerken; it's not an easy trick to pull off, but they make it sound effortless, not only on the bracing, minor-key "Alaska", but also on the more eloquent "The Boy Is On The Outside" and the literate stop-and-start pulse of the ebullient "Something's Coming Up".

A lyrical thread reflecting the band's encroaching maturity runs throughout the disc. "Midas" acknowledges the passage of time for the average Gen-Xer in arrested development ("Your best days were your senior year / now that you're getting on into your senior years"), as does "We Could Be Landowners", where Peake disarmingly admits, "Old men were dinosaurs, but now they are my friends and neighbors." Their take on this subject is not as clever or unique as say, Fountains of Wayne's, but it's far from blank or tired, either, even when it doesn't have the instant charge of something as simplistic and universal as Peake's opening salvo in "Alaska": "I fall in love every day of my life."

What makes Engaged In Labor so, well, engaging is that it aims to please while keeping its integrity intact. "Virginia Creeper" may crunch as well as any indie-rock combo can in its sleep, but the handclap-friendly chorus glides by at an almost disco-like pace that's oddly and outwardly infectious. Even when "Alaska" takes a nearly dissonant turn on its bridge, or when a brief, vibraphone-and-toy-drum instrumental ("Change In The Meter") appears from out of nowhere, you can hear that these guys want to sound both inventive and accessible. Wouldn't it be great if most like-minded combos followed their example?
04.22.04