Joan of Arc is not as much a band as an indie rock accessory. They're as integral (and essentially inessential) to trendy college radio kids as tight shirts, sideburns shaped like Italy, low- hung backpacks, Goodwill coats (that could be going to people who don't have a trust fund), Parliament cigarettes, septum piercings, and keys dangling from the back hip belt- loop. (By the way, you guys, what the heck do you need those 14 keys for? I have two-- car and apartment.) If anything crafted by the hands of man deserves to be held up as the exact definition of "Pretentious," it must be Live in Chicago, 1999 (which, by nature as being the epitome of pretentiousness, is instructed to be pronounced "Live [rhymes with give] in Chicago, 1999.")

This entire album-- every croaky whisper and slowly plucked acoustic string-- is crafted from 100% pure, Grade- A pretentiousness. If pretentiousness were sandstone, this record would be the Great Pyramid, which some skeptics would claim was built by beings of supreme pretentiousness from another galaxy, put here on Earth to channel pure pretentiousness from the Heavens. To Joan of Arc, pretentiousness is the artform and the music a vestigial afterthought. I would call Live in Chicago, 1999 a concept album about being pretentious, but I don't even want to give the guys the credit for unifying this drunk pastiche of left- over poses under a conceptual umbrella.

Everything you could possibly hate about art rock has been drawn through a semi- permeable hipness filter and juiced into one album, nonsensical cover art ("The spoon is supposed to represent the aristocracy, man!"), the complete lack of a hook, remarkably incomprehensible lyrics, Jean-Luc Godard references, "fashion," etc. Tim Kinsella, "mastermind" behind Joan of Arc, sums it up pretty well when he sings, "Count how many ways they have to say nothing." I came up with 1,546 from this record alone. Here are some examples:

"Your parents married picture a kiss a gummy worm wick."

"I've got this idea for a song, which won't actually be a song. It will just be me explaining what the song will be like. Actually, I guess I just did that."

"Luck's locked in now simple uniformitarianism is can't trust hands without arms clocks summer salt."

"To a to be to see and wonder that is yours for now absorb this fluid mirror maze name."

Yeah man, yeah. Totally yeah. And let's not forget the empty philosophical babble! Kinsella mumbles, "We all know monogamy's just a function of capitalism and love it's consequential construct." I'm really glad he's read the back jacket of a Georges Bataille book, but spare us the regurgitation unless you really mean it... Oh wait, I get it! This reaction to monogamy is a justification for the rockstar lifestyle of meaningless hook- ups and house- show fellatio. Hey baby, it's okay to swing, "cause monogamy is just a function of capitalism!" But buy my record and hooded sweatshirt after the show.

At least the album's artwork amuses immensely with newfound levels of pretentiousness. What Joan of Arc claims are cheap re-enactments of a Jean Luc Godard film (and, hey, we all know the world needs more of those) come across more like stills from David Lynch's French stage adaptation of "You're a Sick Bastard, Charlie Brown!" My favorites shots have to be "Men in Peacoats Eating Baguettes" and "Lesbian Guerillas Confront Drummer of Bread Cover Band."

Oh, and the music. I almost forgot. I thought "art rock" was supposed to be innovative. Kinsella cops as much post- rock as his fingers can hold from the songbooks of Prekop and McEntire. And that well ran dry after Prekop's solo album and the ho-hum Reach the Rock Soundtrack. At their most bearable on "If it feels/ Good, do it," Joan of Arc still come across like second- rate Sea and Cake and Gastr Del Sol knock- offs.

The stripped- down moments are the most intolerable, such as the impromptu piano plunking of "Thanks for Chicago, Mr. James" and the slow, rusty acoustic tugs on "All Until the Greens Reveal Themselves at Dawn," which could be the sounds of an amateur tuning. Of course, the fact that Tim Kinsella couldn't carry a tune in a bucket doesn't help much. You, however, will need a bucket to carry the bubbling spew of vomit from your mouth after hearing the title track, on which a machine gun snare- roll clicks incessantly, harshly cut with hissy handheld tape dictations from Kinsella. It's like Tim Kinsella claims on "(I'm Five Senses) None of Them Common:" "This is rock history." Well, yes, but not in the way they intended.

-Brent DiCrescenzo