I vaguely remember playing a drinking game in college called "the power hour" (known as "the century club" in its hundred-minute form). The idea is to take a shot of beer every minute for an hour. At the beginning, the game is too easy. You laugh at how simple it is. "Those jocks," you think. "We give them too much credit for their uncanny ability to drink massive amounts." Then you realize that, no, you never gave jocks any credit at all, and you wonder if playing this game makes you a jock, too.

But, of course, it doesn't, since the last time you broke a sweat was at a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion show. In any case, you're playing the game-- or, as the review initially stated, I was playing the game-- and you sense a little buzz, enhanced, no doubt, by your prior refusal to eat that hideous mess called "campus dining." Then you start feeling a little bloated and wonder if you're swallowing as much air as you are beer.

Watch the clock, shot; watch the clock, shot; watch the clock, shot. Soon, the LCD display starts to wriggle around. You try to figure out how many beers make up 60 shots, but you're in no shape to even count the ones in front of you. Energy bursts are interspersed among your drunken afternoon haze. Mankind, you realize, was never meant to drink before sunset. You squint, pass out.

This would be The Low Power Hour, and when it comes to the drinking game, there's really no other kind. Fittingly enough, Roto is comprised of a handful of buddies who may or may not drink together. Described as "a celebration of drums, a collaboration of D.C. musicians, an experiment, a project, a band," Roto was formed in 1999 by Resin Records co-founders David Arbury and Carleton Ingram. Since the crux of this project is its cast of supporting D.C. musicians, I'll list them here: John Davis and Harris Klahr of Q and Not U, Justin Moyer of El Guapo and Edie Sedgwick, and Charles Jamison of Land Speed Record.

As you might have guessed by now, The Low Power Hour is very much a D.C. album, and the first track, "Trickster," is political to boot (no pun intended). The song opens with low, repetitive guitar chords that set a dark, almost tribal mood for vocals that recall a Native American chant. "Hey now, and hey now, and hey now again," sings, er, Arbury or Ingram. (Full disclosure: both men sing throughout this album, and I don't whose voice is whose.) The song then tears into "the America seldom told," which is described as "killing nations to make way for Caucasians." Thematically, the song is thoroughly cohesive, but the off-tune, fey Brit-punk vocals tend to grate, especially with the failed attempt at high notes with lines like, "Bury my heart, my blood runs cold," and, "Appease these, appease these irascible times."

Thankfully, the vocals on "Glass" are infinitely better. With one subdued man singing, "No one's closer to me," and the aforementioned singer making a more valid attempt at tonality, the song ingrains itself in the listener's mind in a more preferable manner than "Trickster." The subsequent "Low Power FM" combines the positive aspects of the first two tracks, returning to the verve of the "Trickster," both vocally and instrumentally, but retaining the disparate vocals of "Glass."

But wait, isn't The Low Power Hour "a celebration of drums," among other things? Heretofore, the drums have been rumbling and shuffling along without any notable advancements. But on "Wrecking Ball," everything opens up with inconsistent hyperactive drumming and a chaotic, electronic-riddled chorus. Here, Roto are at their best, finding a perfect marriage for post-punk angularity and compelling experimentalism.

The Low Power Hour becomes more inconsistent as it alternately barrels and sleepwalks toward the end of the hour (actually, 52 minutes). The vocals on the undeveloped "The Show"-- somehow about both candy and the public/private personas of a stage performer-- remind me of the discomfort caused by the voice of Belle and Sebastian's Stuart David. But for every three seemingly aimless tracks-- think of some of the later tracks on Q and Not U's No Kill No Beep Beep-- there's a number like "No Alimony," with its harmonizing vocals (to think!) and dynamic songwriting, or a reprise of "The Show," which offers plenty of varied, surprising guitar work and amazing drumming that approaches drum-and-bass.

So how, exactly, does drinking play into this again? Oh, yes, that. Well, The Low Power Hour, like playing "the power hour," initially sounds like a good idea. And it starts off exciting, if occasionally cumbersome, just like pouring and drinking all those head-filled shots. But by the end of the hour, you can't tell if you're drunk or just tired. And you wonder-- or rather, I wonder-- if maybe the time would have been better spent, I don't know, say, studying.

-Ryan Kearney