The Poison Control Center, Stranger Ballet

The Poison Control Center, Stranger Ballet

Reviewed by: Christian Hagen

The Poison Control Center has been on the bubble of breaking out of the Minneapolis indie scene for a few years now, never quite escaping the confines of the Twin Cities in a significant way [ed. note - The band is from Ames, Iowa, but because of their association with Afternoon Records and their presence in Minnesota, the author considers them a part of the Twin Cities scene]. It’s not for lack of apparent talent; the band has always succeeded at banging out punky pop rock with difficult, sometimes screeching harmonies that make their music both excitingly unpredictable and, paradoxically, a bit tired, like the group is trying a little too hard to be different from their underground rock peers and not fully succeeding. Still, there’s no doubt the group can play; in their simplest material, they’re still clearly in a strong grasp of their chosen genre(s).

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Stranger Ballet, the band’s latest record which comes out in June, is deceptively nuanced, but you definitely won’t be able to tell this from the first few songs. “Torpedoes on Tuesday,” the opening track and the first single from the album, is both an inferior Replacements knock-off and a bit of a dull, off-key mess. While it might seem a bit charming at first, the barely interested vocals and throw-away lyrics, combined with a mostly typical garage sound induce boredom quickly. Follow-up “Some Ordinary Vision” is bouncy enough to pick up some of the slack of the first song, and the vocal change (the band members rotate vocals on almost every song, so much so that each song could easily be a different band if not for the relatively consistent guitar fuzz) is definitely welcome. But ultimately, this song does little to counter the sound and boredom of the first song. Track three, “Thousand Colors,” is easily the album’s low-point; silly, a bit grating, unnecessarily screamy towards its end, it’s just not worth the space it takes up here.

However, something happens to The Poison Control Center at the end of “Thousand Colors.” As the song winds down, there’s a twisted flood of feedback and ominous, warping tones, and, out of nowhere, this wall of noise runs headfirst into the screaming, pummeling intro to “Dracula’s Casket.” Then, even more startling, the brutality gives way to a silly “ooooooOOO” buildup which transitions into a fun, mid-tempo rock tune that contains twists, turns, amusing vocal flourishes, and the album’s first solid melody. It’s as though the first three songs were like a primer on the band this used to be, or maybe a parody of it, which is abruptly thrown into the waters of new ideas. It’s a much nicer way to consider an opening trio of lifeless songs, and it’s probably not accurate to the band’s intent, but the effect is the same: From track four on, this is a band with real skill.

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The music over the last three-quarters of Stranger Ballet meets the unusual promise of the album’s title and soars with vigor. The brief “Born on Date” is a play between a sweet slide-guitar intro and a teen-punk back half that merges together surprisingly well. “Church on Mars” is the opposite of “Torpedoes on Tuesday,” a throwback indie rock tune that doesn’t feel worn out and winds up, at times, coming off like Pavement jamming with Brian Wilson. There’s verve and intriguing and complexity in many of these tracks that reveals exactly why this band should be of interest to the rock press outside the Midwest.

On each listen, one could easily find a different standout track. “Porcelain Brain” is four or five songs in one, a swirling, swelling intro, a simple little slice of pop, a light slacker punk tune, bar rock, and, finally, a grand alt-country ballad, all within two-and-a-half-minutes. “Seagull” would likely serve the band much better as a first single, as it’s not only catchy pop-rock but it’s downright fun and contains the album’s first instance of an odd trend that appears on the back half: soulful backup vocals. I don’t know who elected to invite the Motown style backup singers for this recording, but that person deserves a hearty handshake, as their very presence elevates these songs from standard garage pop to something resembling an ambitious rock record.

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But without doubt, the song that stands out the most often on repeat listens is “Underground Bed,” the best song that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! never recorded and a danceable treat. It’s the kind of song that makes people drum on their steering wheels and bang their heads in traffic, the kind of rock song that will get people to literally jump around at parties. Also, along with the grandiose closer “Reoccuring Kind,” it contains one of the best uses of the soul singers mentioned earlier.

“Reoccuring Kind,” meanwhile, is such a killer closing song, it’s enough to make one want to start the whole album from the top. It completely erases the memory of those early missteps, and even makes them better, as one can hear the humanity and talent that might at first seem absent from those songs. This is the kind of music that could break a band like The Poison Control Center into the national indie consciousness. With a sound this big, it’s hard to imagine even two cities keeping them secret for long.