Let's play "What If." What If... Britney Spears, who, in real life, shot like a buxom arrow from the American South to the Mickey Mouse Club to the waiting and greasily magical hands of a cadre of Swedish record producers, instead stayed home through high school, went to college in a fairly hip Southern city, discovered "indie," dyed her hair a blonde so blonde it was almost white, and moved to NYC with a guy to craft bedroom dance-pop on a laptop computer? Really. What If?

Well, first, the youngsters would probably come up with a suitably dorky name for their project, something relevant to their situation but sufficiently non-sequiturial. Then they'd get signed to Kindercore. Then they'd put out some 12-inches while working up material for their full-length. Then they'd release their full-length, to occasional college radio airplay, middling reviews in print and webzines, and reasonable sales. Then, if things seemed to be going well enough, they'd release another full-length in a few years. Yup. Not nearly as exciting an existence as the good people at Disney and Jive could have offered her (and her boobies would probably be a little less ginourmous), but overall, not a bad life. Turned out to be kind of a boring "What If," though.

This is not to say that all of I Am the World Trade Center's debut LP, Out of the Loop, sounds like "Oops, I Did It Again"; some of it, though, does, just a little. And that's the part where the two main players seem to be getting it right. Dan Gellar and Amy Dykes have a buried knack for the driving groove; songs like "Move On" and "Holland Tunnel" want to rock your body and jack you up hardcore, but are limited by their sound and recording quality.

Dan and Amy possess what could be called an "ethic," or what could also be called a "budget"; none of the beats or basslines quite hit that expensive sub-bass level, all the samples and synth washes rattle about tinnily in your speakers, and Amy's always slightly off-key vocals bear all the quiet tension of the big-city apartment-dweller singing softly into her cardioid mike so as not to bother the swarthy fella next door. All this low fidelity can work to some acts' advantage, and does to I Am the World Trade Center's, sometimes. Like on "Analogous," which features the most charming white-indie band attempt at stutter-step R&B; beats this side of the Beta Band's "To You Alone."

But even the Betas made you want to dance, or seemed to want you to dance. Whether the members of I Am the World Trade Center really want you to dance to their music is debatable. Perhaps the most telling word in the last sentence of the previous paragraph was "charming"; it really speaks volumes about this band's stock in trade, which is to take a spice rack full of elements and qualities inherent to honest-to-god-we-want-to-move-you dance music and twee 'em up a bunch. Which is not as bad as it sounds. It can be quite, well, charming. But it can also suck fat squirrel balls.

The intended single for this record seems to be "Metro," considering it leads off the album in its "Brooklyn Mix" form, and caps it in "Athens Mix" fashion. Oh, and because it bites. We can't have an actually catchy single; remember, kids, the watchwords here are "willful obscurity." The song sounds like the opening theme to an industrial instruction film-- something where girders are lifted and coffee is drunk from thermoses, then a smiling guy in a suit appears to tell you how you, too, can increase workplace safety. Which, as a description, makes it sound more interesting and less hackneyed than it actually is. But, were it my duty to sequence this album, I'd just lop the two versions of this track off, and let Out of the Loop begin with the winning greatness of "Me to Be."

"Me to Be" is the kind of song that goes perfectly on seven inches, intended, as they are, for either incessantly repeated home playings, or broadcasts on your local staticky AM college station that makes all music sound lo-fi, so that this track, jammed up against the latest high-budget Daft Punk endeavor, can come off as just plain awesome. It's the most Britney-esque moment on the album, fast-paced and questioning, featuring a squelching keyboard riff, sitars, and a flute loop that sugars it all up just right. It remains resolutely indie, though, at an extended-bridge-free-dance-breakdown 2½ minutes, which end all too quickly. That's what "back" buttons were made for, though.

After "Me to Be," Out of the Loop never gets quite that ass-shakingly good again, and considering that it's only the second track (or, in my more perfect version of the album, the first), that's kind of disappointing. But only a little. Overall, the whole record is pretty good, and deserves credit for its offhanded attempt at a ramshackle pop vision. Let's hope that these guys get to spend a little more money the next time around, though. Or get their hands on some greasily magical Swedes. Now that would be an interesting "What If!"

-Jonny Pietin