See how they are

Trona leave wussiness behind

by Brett Milano

Trona pulled a surprise on me the last time I saw them live, three Mondays ago at Charlie's Tap. I was expecting more of the sweet-and-sour pop that's become the band's calling card over the past two years; what I got was a band wailing away as though their parents had finally left the room. The twin guitars were turned way up (you could barely tell that one was acoustic); the rhythm section wasn't even trying to be polite; and though it's the ultimate cliché to say that any band with male and female singers sounds like X, this time the vocals of Chris Dyas and Mary Ellen Leahy really did sound like X. Which is fine, because their material tends to be sweeter than anything John Doe and Exene would come up with, and Trona's heart-and-muscle juxtaposition made it work.

"No more wuss rock for us!" was the first off-stage remark I got from bassist Pete Sutton, always a quotable type. He had a point, however. When Trona started two years ago, they went against the local grain by reveling in their own wussiness, a likely reaction against the high testosterone level of Dyas's previous band, Orangutang. In another non-Orangutang move, Trona came off more as a group of friends than as industry chasers; nominal lead guitarist Leahy freely admitted she'd never played a lick of guitar before joining. The strategy, and a smart one, was to start with the songs and the chemistry and catch up with the big rock gestures later -- or maybe by the time of that Charlie's gig, the big rock spirit had just caught up with them.

That's one reason Trona the album (out this week on Cosmic) is good, but Trona the band are currently a lot better. A second reason is that "Poor Violet," the most irresistible song they've written, failed to make the album; they say they couldn't get a good version in the studio. Still, I would have taken a half-assed version over their cover of Stereolab's "Wow and Flutter" which, even with guitars replacing synths, sounds too much like the original.

The main reason, though, is that the album catches the band at a formative stage they've already passed. Most of it was recorded more than a year ago; the leadoff track, "Red Hot Slag," was a single in '95, and the newest ones were recorded with the prize money soon after they won last year's WBCN Rumble. At the time Trona were still playing the wuss-rock card, and the album's guitar sound is unfashionably thin, with the vocals pushed way up front (likely a band decision, since the tracks were done in four sessions with five different producers). Dyas largely sticks with acoustic guitar, leaving the still-learning Leahy to play all the leads; sometimes it works in a two-note Kelley Deal manner, but a little of that approach goes a long way. And sometimes the acoustic guitars sound misplaced, especially on "It Went Away," which really wants to be a punk number.

The band's self-confidence is clear on the album. They're out to grow at their own pace, and their songwriting is what justifies it. "Red Hot Slag" is the only weak one in the batch. Its guitar riff descends too clearly from Iggy Pop's "Five Foot One," and the tabloid-culture lyric makes it a borderline novelty song -- which, after Weezer and the Presidents of the USA, probably won't hurt its chances for airplay. But the remaining eight originals (all credited collectively to the band) are the real payoff, sporting tunes that are alternately soaring and '60s-ish ("Web"), soaring and punkish ("Employee of the Month"), and soaring and countryish ("Tucson," whose giveaway lyric line -- "I'm never leaving Tucson/It's the one place I won't run into you" -- is worth the long build-up). The one full-fledged acoustic number, "Dumb," is melancholy and gorgeous, with a heart-grabbing vocal by Leahy that makes me want to take back any complaints about her guitar playing.

Lead vocals are shared almost equally. Sometimes the sweetness in Leahy's voice balances the wry approach that Dyas now favors; sometimes they do country twang à la X's See How We Are. That's all well and good, but if Trona are going to make an X-like album, I want to hear their Ain't Love Grand -- bring on the Marshall amps and the vulgar arena-rock leanings. Songs this good are worth some dressing-up.

Dyas hints that such a move will happen in the band's own time. "We wanted to keep things low-key as possible. Bands these days get snapped up so fast they don't get time to develop, instead of making a few albums first like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. did. Now they try to squeeze a hit out of you right away regardless of your style."

Of course, that's pretty much what happened to Orangutang. "Sure, nobody in that band had much business sense and I can't say I agree with all the decisions that were made. I guess I feel that this band is more under our control."

It's only recently that Trona have even taken on a manager, though it's a high-powered one: Deb Klein (also their label's owner), who's gotten them some upcoming national dates with her other clients, Morphine. Asked why Trona haven't been going after major-label deals, Leahy shoots back, "Remember your article last week?" -- referring to a profile of the ill-fated Talking to Animals. Dyas concurs: "I'm terrified of major labels. I think they suck."

The smaller guitar sound on the CD was also part of a strategy. "When the band started, I'd been hanging out a lot at the Deluxe, this bar down on Clarendon Street," Dyas notes. "And they had great music on the stereo -- you'd hear the Ramones, then Johnny Cash, then a calypso song. And what I noticed was that every time a modern song came on, you couldn't hear the vocals -- even on something I loved, like a Pixies song, the vocals sounded pretty washed out, so we didn't want to do that. What I liked about Mary Ellen's guitar sound was that she came up with parts I'd never think of. I already have too many notions of what to play, and I know more rock clichés."

"I don't get flustered when I make mistakes anymore," Leahy points out. "What's on the album is really an accumulation of what we've been doing for the past two years -- and it's chronological, so you have to go to the end of the album to hear what we sound like now. We still play songs we like, and now that's countryish punk-pop songs. It's only the first record."

Trona play a CD-release party upstairs at the Middle East this Saturday, February 22.