There's a surprising dearth of intellectualism to be found at Rock 'n' Roll High School. The students more apt to bury their Buddy Holly glasses in pages of Kant or a wanky text dissecting the film techniques of the French New Wave are bound to get their asses kicked at recess by The Liars or Rye Coalition or some other group that feels the need to let off a little testosterone. So these smarty-pants band together in secret, subtly veiling their high-minded leanings under a veneer of pretension-- they'll hint at their summer reading lists, but never let you see what's on it.

A rare few of these young brainiacs are confident enough to flaunt their intelligence-- listening to Ted Leo referencing Joyce is just one of the things that made The Tyranny of Distance so interesting. Of course, Leo is also a convenient example of how to cross the line between 'high brow' and 'you've got to be kidding.' And the title alone of Tej Leo (?), Rx/Pharmacists, in the immortal words of another great intellectual (Joey from "Friends"), makes "the line a dot to him."

That said, Comet Gain have, thus far, been something like the anti-Leo in both the smarts department and their approach to music: twice the pretense of artsiness, but less substance beneath it. That is, unless you want to consider putting on airs as an artform in itself, in which case we could be here all night. But I digress. Point is, Comet Gain have always made a sport of broadcasting there preferences for words, sights, and sounds as loudly as they could, not just in their liners, but sometimes even in über-pretentious spoken word bits on their albums. On past offerings they've piled it on so thick-- like some sort of nerd-poseur desperately seeking to prove himself nerdy enough to join the chess club-- that it was difficult to take them seriously at times, but harder to fault them for the effort.

And now that I'm finally used to their odd affectations, Comet Gain have gone and shifted their lineup (again) to record Realistes, an album largely devoid of turtlenecked reference to art and culture. What happened to the pomp? The circumstance? Well, apparently, they needed to make room in the tour van for better songwriting, so most of it had to go, which is fine. Artsy pretense is fun like ogling a car wreck is fun, but it usually sounds like shit.

Old film stills of Italian realist and French new wave films litter the liners of Realistes, and indeed, frontman David Christian provides a long-winded rant on the band's ideals of deconstructing and rebuilding-- but without even a head-nod to Bazin! And while, according to drummer Chris Appelgren (founder of Lookout! Records and now the frontman for garage-rockers The Pattern), this album attempts to juxtapose "a country twang on krautrock's mechanical drones," it appears they just ended up copping from various incarnations of Sonic Youth. If you listen hard enough, you can hear echoes of Dirty and Daydream Nation between the reverb-drenched compositions and male/female vocal tradeoffs of Christian and Rachel Green.

Indeed, Comet Gain have narrowed focus from their previous release, Tigertown Pictures, and settled in on raw, hard-edged guitars, simple rhythmic arrangements, and heavily treated vocals to keep the listener at arm's length. This, however, is not actually a bad thing, since these laid-back rock tracks keep their pop melodies in the driver's seat, and the band does allow occasional hints of invention to sporadically beam through the murk.

"Why I Try to Look So Bad" and "I Close My Eyes and Think of God" both typify Realistes' tendency towards lo-fi pop a la early Sonic Youth, and "Movies" draws on an SY sound from a few years down the line. The fuzzy distortion and vocals of these melodies are as competent as anything Comet Gain has produced, and to be fair, it's extremely listenable without succumbing to total Xeroxation-- even if it's not particularly memorable. And though the hazy, droning retreads are a decent foundation, the album really shines in the exceptions. "The Kids at the Club" sounds like a brawnier second-cousin of Belle and Sebastian's "Legal Man" and features a great intro bit like a scratchy LP of a 50s ad jingle. It's an electric opener that's just out of place enough to set it apart from the more subdued tunes to follow, and the guitar vibe still plays into them naturally.

Of the notable exceptions on Realistes, the real star is "Ripped-Up Suit," and not just because I'm in love with Kathleen Hanna. For real, this song, co-written and sung by Hanna, is a much-needed burst of adrenaline following the two slowest, most ill-conceived pieces present. Heavy, thrashing guitars and a lumbering bassline form a wall of feedback, almost concealing the vocals, which are nearly indecipherable to begin with after passing through numerous distortive filters. Hanna's gorgeous spitfire delivery, punctuated by an occasional beautiful yelp through digital fog, is a godsend.

Realistes' faults, mercifully, aren't fundamental to its sound, or as intangible as simple derivation, but instead confined to individual missteps. "Labour" is the one truly misguided effort-- completely out of step with the tone of the album, it's a weird, low-key, horn-driven piece that feels like run down a blind alley. It's not bad, but it's sure not very good, a strange foray into Motown that hearkens back to Tigertown in terms of unsteady lack of focus. And, for a final negative Sonic Youth comparison: "Moments in the Snow" is as glaring and pulseless as any of the masturbatory crap Thurston Moore threw onto the suicide bombing that was NYC Ghosts & Flowers, right down to the hackified spoken word. And even this, if nothing else, is at least a throwback to some of the band's earlier pretensions, which I loved. But I'm still happier with the music.

-Eric Carr, August 16th, 2002