Minding your manners with 33.3

33.3: Plays Music

Post-rock has always been a rather polite business. Even the skronk-smiths of Slint were always kind enough to build sufficient tension to give you fair warning that another heavy guitar meltdown was on the way. Judging by the band photos on their new album, plays music, 33.3 knows this brand of etiquette well enough. The band members' white dress shirts and calm, serious-but-bemused expressions make them look like the type of people you'd want to have over for dinner and witty repartée.

Or, in the case of plays music, you could join 33.3 for a walk in the park. The album is the perfect soundtrack for an afternoon stroll, full of subtle guitar lines glinting off of horn melodies and cello undercurrents like 5 p.m. sunlight off of iridescent foliage. Like the conversation on this hypothetical day out, the music is neither confrontational nor surprising, and the closest thing to exertion is when the drums change the pace from the easygoing saunter of "Power Failure at the U.N." to the brisk shuffle of "Joanne Will" and the jaunty bounce of "Super Eight."

Not that there isn't an intellectual side to this sunny-day sojourn. After all, 33.3 is comprised of mostly Yale students. Instead of easygoing pop melodies, Brian Alfred, ART '99, Joseph Grimm, JE '01, and Dominique Davison, ARCH '00, play deceptively simple guitar, horn, and cello lines that wrap around each other until the tension between the instruments overshadows their individual effects. Meanwhile, double bassist William Noland alternates between joining this musical game of cat's cradle and punctuating it with rhythmic flourishes while drummer/percussionist Steven Walls, ART '99, holds the whole web together with rolling snares and a percolating Latin upbeat.

Problem is, 33.3 is a bit too well-mannered to make a point with its musical discourse. While its songs are as pleasant as a walk in the park, they're also just as uneventful, evolving without ever really resolving themselves. Melodies segue into one another, different instruments drop in and out of the mix, tempos shift, and then the track is over. It never really ends or begins—it's there and then it isn't. Without a sturdy foundation, the band's unique blend of cello, horns, and guitar collapses in on itself. Tiny changes in sound, like the delayed guitar in the middle of "Joanne Will," stand out a bit too much. Instead of making you wish that the band had included more such twists, these touches highlight the fact that 33.3 hasn't done enough with the strong musicianship already at its disposal.

Fortunately, plays music is more structured than the individual songs that make up the whole. The upbeat tracks that occupy the center of the record pull things together, catching 33.3 in enough of a groove that the lack of structure doesn't matter. And although the percussion-free "An Evening in Park Slope" seems like a typical slow closer at first, the repetition of a single guitar phrase gives the song a serene simplicity that the rest of the album lacks.

As with much of instrumental rock, plays music may be too perfect of a soundtrack to stand on its own, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable once Sunday afternoon rolls around and the sun comes out. 33.3 has created cerebral music that is best not taken cerebrally. Analyze the album in your dorm room late at night and the chinks in the wall of sound begin to show. But put it on when the weather's good and your mood's better and 33.3 becomes a gracious companion to spend the day with. (Aesthetics)

—Eliot Rose

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