Going to the Bone Church

On their third full-length record for Flameshovel, Joan of Arc alter ego Make Believe turn in another bewildering batch of avant-rock songs. Anyone who is familiar with this group of musicians knows what to expect by now, and on Going to the Bone Church, they continue to play by their own rules. Drummer Nate Kinsella still eschews his hi hat for a tambourine mounted on its stand while simultaneously hammering on his Wurlitzer, guitarist Sam Zurick still fingerpicks his electric guitar as if it were some sort of percussive harp, and Tim Kinsella still spits stream of consciousness lyrics peppered with barks and shrieks while bassist Bobby Burg reins them all in with the low end that anchors the songs. At first listen, many of these songs can come off as incoherent noodling — Make Believe is certainly not for everybody — but with repeated listens, subtle grooves reveal themselves in their jerky stop-start rhythms, and the songs begin to gel until the off-kilter melodies lodge themselves in your head. Lyrically, Kinsella offers some gems, and some headscratchers, such as "all porn is gay porn" (in "(I Can't Understand) Satisfaction") and "protest the Vietnam War" (which is either 40 years too late or is meant to be a metaphor for the war in Iraq). Overall, this album is a bit more subdued than Of Course, and the band does seem to be lacking some of their previous urgency, perhaps borrowing some tricks from Joan of Arc (see the spoken word bongo breakdown in the title track, or the late-'90s emo plod of "Just Green Enough"). But elsewhere, such as on opener "Ooo Yum," or the spooky "Wearin Torn," they are just as volatile as ever. Along with bands like Deerhoof and the Dirty Projectors, Make Believe continue to rewrite the rock playbook (almost literally, on "(I Can't Understand) Satisfaction," in which Kinsella quotes the melody from the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," only changing the lyrics to "I can't understand satisfaction"), and while Going to the Bone Church may not be the best Make Believe release, it will definitely appeal to fans of their past work, and anyone interested in forward-thinking rock music.