If you never stretch, you'll never know what your limits are. Muscatine band Burnt Ends stretches a lot, and - as the group's new album Trip the Dandy nears its end - finds its limit. To put it bluntly: On an otherwise sure-footed album that rarely plays it safe, the rapping was a terrible choice - incongruous and baffling.
So kudos to the quintet for locating that boundary and crossing it, thus highlighting some of the album's achievements. Trip the Dandy is confident, bracing, and steady, but it's not showy, and as a result it would be easy to dismiss as simply sturdy. But then the rapping comes out of nowhere on the ninth track, "Good Shit."
The rapping itself isn't bad - it's provided by Straiht Wikid Crew and comes from the whiny-white-boy school of the Beastie Boys and Eminem - but it doesn't fit. There's nothing earlier on the album to prepare the listener for it, and - worse yet - there's nothing in the song that sets the stage. The track is upbeat funk underscored by what sounds like a family of sick whales, and when Straiht Wikid Crew pops in at the three-minute mark, it's beyond jarring.
I'm emphasizing what's wrong on Trip the Dandy because so much is right. Dominated by waves of articulate but mix-mellowed guitars, Burnt Ends sounds like nobody else yet comes from a tradition of oddball pop that includes the Flaming Lips, Modest Mouse, and Neutral Milk Hotel - bands that craft a unique sound without ever forcing the issue or drawing attention to how strange they really are; they make their bizarre music sound like the most natural thing in the world.
Burnt Ends most closely resembles spacey alternative country, but its building blocks are so unconventional that it's barely kin. The band has a casual mastery of arrangement, of making deliberate components sound organic.
The CD's second track, "Little Horse," includes horns, warm but off-kilter keyboards, hand claps, and mincing singing matched with serious low-end backing vocals, yet they work together remarkably well. The opening track, "Buckeye," features two lead guitars, one that moans and one that bristles with atonal fuzz. The effect is of two separate but well-matched songs layered on top of each other, and it creates a musical tension that's invigorating.
The band includes drummer Jon Boldt, with John Watkins, M.J. Dunlap, Mike Clifton, and Nate Wall all playing the stringed instruments. Four of the five also contribute vocals. One gets the impression that the lack of a clear division of labor is one reason the band works so well. Each song draws from the same well, but the ensemble's flexibility means that the approach will be slightly different each time.
That's even true within songs. "Crystal Wings" features at least three distinct layers of guitar sound, two of which are aspiring to the same sort of ethereal soaring. They intertwine for three minutes, until one finally breaks through, and then they again find a harmonious place.
Even the relatively straightforward "Space Ghost" builds to a climax in which multiple guitar lines are working with and against each other. A few tracks are less songs than excuses for guitar workouts, but it's hard to complain when the instruments are so expressive.
The guitars take a break on the lovely "Savage Beast," when some delicate, finely tuned vocals take center stage. The sentiments are clichéd, but the delivery sells them: "Music soothes the savage beast / And there's a beast in me / So put a record on." As with everything else on the album, the song is deeply felt, and it's backed up by the record itself. It's a testament to the power of music.
Burnt Ends will next perform on Saturday, July 8, at Missippi Brew in Muscatine.
For more information on Burnt Ends, including downloadable songs, visit (http://www.myspace.com/burntends).
