You know, you don't get many chances in life to preface a record review with a tidy little vignette about the guy who lives across the street. This is one gift horse I refuse to look in the mouth, so here goes...

He stepped off his porch and into the passenger seat of his girlfriend's car just as I'd seen him do many times before from the computer desk in my living room. As she started the engine, his hands, in a flurry of motion accompanied by his metronomic head, beat out an obtuse syncopation on the plastic dash and armrest. Though I can't say what tunes poured out of the Jetta's factory-installed sound system, I can say for sure that the ones in his head were kicking some ass. As the car left the curb, I could make out, for a split-second, his knees pumping similar patterns into the floor. In that Jetta sat Kip McCabe and a microcosm of what's different about Dianogah's second full-length release, Battle Champions.

Sporting just two basses and McCabe's drum set, Dianogah and their debut, As Seen from Above, for all intents and purposes, set themselves up to be a post-rock joke. But where others settled for droning, noisy soundscapes or blatant Tortoise rip-offs, Jason Harvey, Jay Ryan, and Kip McCabe managed to ingeniously meld Minutemen-styled string intricacy with the two-bass gimmick that Minuteman bassist Mike Watt invented with his Dos side project. Early on, Dianogah was inventive and unpredictable, a difficult task given their minimalist line-up and live show.

The Battle Champions era replaces one great producer from Shellac for another, Albini for Weston; it also tosses a few errant instruments into Dianogah's spare repertoire. "Kaisakunin" opens the album with a hushed duet of guitar and bass, presaging what turns out to be a less driving, more textured record. "Work" pretends to be just this texture, peeking in between Dianogah compositions with a picked guitar ditty that Yes might have labelled "Part I:" of a 27-minute prog opus. Toy piano tinkles at the heart of "Indie Rock Spock Ears," adding little to a track which, like Leonard Nimoy’s Vulcan, runneth over with elaborate methods of getting the crew out of a tired post-rock situation.

Milking newness from the dual bass idea that might have worn thin long ago, Jason Harvey and Jay Ryan interweave and repeat parts skillfully-- it's McCabe's drumming that worries me. Although technically excellent throughout (and here's where that vignette becomes clear), his trademark rhythmic creation lacks the momentum and off-kilter snare that made As Seen from Above so permanently surprising. I mean, have you ever tried air- drumming that record? It's tough.

The same problem pops up all over this record. Just when you need "They Have Monkeys like We Have Squirrels" to barrel out into full-on rocking, it shuffles back into the muted-bass intro and John McEntire drums you've heard twice before in the same track. Sure, its catchy chorus hooks you cleanly, but the game of guessing just where McCabe might bang that snare for emphasis is missing and it hurts.

As before, Jay Ryan fancies himself a singer on two standout tracks here. "Eating Cake" starts out a weary travelogue on "having gone too far south" and it being "hard to carry this much water," and ends up an apology to a dog "kicked out into the street" who leaves as unwillingly as the narrator. McCabe's military march drumming gives Battle Champions may be what gives the album its title. Then, the tune morphs nicely into up-tempo fIREHOSE-mimicry of the "Spiral Bound" format. Simply constructed on two sparring bass lines, "Time for a Game of Stick" refuses to build up much around Ryan's mellowly droned lyric, "I need a moment to figure this out." But bass and voice ascend together when he sees "it's time for me to stop acting dumb."

Dianogah have aged nicely into a kinder, gentler record. Repeat listens reveal subtleties that were not necessarily better in the band's early output, just more obvious. To their credit, Dianogah have avoided making the same record twice, even if McCabe's best moments may be lost to a Volkswagen's dashboard parked two cars down from mine.

-Judson Picco