Indie rock is driven by more self-loathing and guilt than Catholicism can ingrain. If you've ever released a record, chances are someone's going to reissue it fifteen years later and proclaim it the most significant, unheralded masterpiece of its generation. Of the handful of yet-to-be-rediscovered bands that spring to mind in 2002, Bastro and My Dad Is Dead are absolutely laboring in obscurity, but I guess if they're still uncovering pyramids, indie rock has some time.

Mark Edwards was one of those creative maniacs driven to perform his art whenever, wherever possible, hitting the stage in the mid-80s with only a drum machine as backup. The novelty of this arrangement, and his songwriting skill-- My Dad Is Dead's 1985 debut And He's Not Gonna Take It Anymore still plays like a happy marriage of Joy Division and Devo-- won a tour in support of Modern English, and exposure most one-man bands wouldn't bother to dream of. Naturally, he got a band together (footnote: John McEntire, later of Bastro and Tortoise, played drums) and after releasing a pair of quality albums on Homestead (the Matador of the 1980s), unleashed a double-album backed by then-happening Cleveland indie rockers Prisonshake in 1989.

If that double-album, The Taller You Are, The Shorter You Get, had come out a few years earlier, it would rank as one of the strongest indie releases of that decade, but by the end of the eighties, post-Gang of Four funk ("Meep Meep") and drum machine punk ("The Big Picture") were well-traveled ground. Subsequent efforts to sound more like Bob Mould alienated any fans he may have had; by the release of 1997's Everyone Wants the Honey But Not the Sting, My Dad Is Dead were nothing more than an easy one-liner.

A decade of debasement is a lot to answer for, but over the last four years, Mark Edwards has done some penance. Reverting to the simpler, more personal approach heard on the first three My Dad Is Dead records, he pulls off a shift toward the nostalgic with a pair of standout laments (incidentally, Edwards' dad is dead-- his passing informed most of the early work and obviously the nome de plume). Leaving behind the grind of recording for fickle record labels like Scat and Emperor Jones, Edwards has gotten back in touch with himself; his honest warble returns in earnest on the album's opener, "All We Want". Though the target market for his bleating is limited, anyone with an appreciation of the less-polished, awkward beginnings of indie rock in the mid-80s will daydream along with this funereal drum machine anthem, imploring, "When we finally have all we want, I hope we'll still need it."

Echoes of Marshall Crenshaw crop up in "Fingers on the Pulse", a superlative piece of indie twang, but things begin to meander soon after. Ambling verse/chorus/verse pop songs are mired in cheap effects and even cheaper drum sounds (there are actual drums on some songs, but Edwards should have stuck to the machine in each case). The bedroom pop of the title track is as disposable as it is danceable, and it's one of the better moments on the record. He gets in some great melodies on "On My Way" and "Nobody Else But You", but each song is utterly deflated by childish, lazy lyrics.

For its two finest moments, The Engine of Commerce fails to lay to rest the Bob Mould comparisons Edwards has invited over the last ten years. "Stories Left Untold" is a fairly egregious reincarnation of Hüsker Dü's New Day Rising-era material, and now that Mould's dabbling in electronica, Edwards will probably find any audience for 40 year-old indie rockers with drum machines usurped.

-Chris Ott, October 14th, 2002