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Underappreciated
BY IAN SANDS
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January is always a bit slow, and not a bad time to take one last look at some of the discs that were overlooked as 2005 came to a close, from Zack Rogue’s latest Wave to the other album Marah released in October. ROGUE WAVE | "BIRD ON A WIRE" | For anyone who hasn’t already discovered that Descended like Vultures is Out of the Shadow with a bigger budget, "Bird on a Wire" offers a tempting taste of Zack Rogue’s uneasy marriage of dissonance and harmony, with its intermittent drum rolls, crowing guitar, and gentle melodies. NADA SURF | "DO IT AGAIN" | The precocious, angsty Nada Surf of the ’90s — yes, the "Popular" band — found a second life in the indie underground last year, thanks to the Barsuk disc The Weight Is a Gift. And there’s something to be said for the restraint and sheer maturity of a line like "Maybe this weight was a gift/Like I had to see what I could lift" — a highlight from "Do It Again." MARAH | "NEW YORK IS A CHRISTMAS KIND OF TOWN" | Sure, If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry (Yep-Roc) earned Marah their usual critical kudos. But it also overshadowed the holiday album they released the same day: here, in the disc’s de facto title track, the Brothers Bielanko take another page out of the Boss’s book and get poetic with observations like "Every traffic cop is a peppermint drop/Every downtown bus is a sleigh."
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