Music critics are fond of the word “angular,” with its implications of severe aural edges and drastic imagery of slashing guitars, jutting bass lines and razor-sharp cymbal-snaps.
The Symptoms have the whole angular market cornered, especially in the Denver indie rock scene, where their sound is unique. Sometimes guitarist Josh Bergstrand, drummer Rob Burleson and bassist Sonya Decman are channeling the Breeders’ riffs and dual-vocals approach via “Yr Cool.” Elsewhere The Symptoms are their own distinct mélange of frenetic post-punk, creating a pulsating, staccato microcosm that feeds off a “Lovelife”-era Lush and takes it to another platform of polished cool with their own “Books About Trigonometry.”
Either way, the band’s catalog of minimalist-oriented songs never lacks melody – or meat, for that matter – but each track is a lean cut specifically pared back with a sharpened cleaver and a keen sense of balance.
“We do trim the fat off things,” said Decman, an artist and a part-time art professor. “I don’t think there’s a Symptoms song over 3 minutes.”
“Yeah there is,” said Bergstrand, grabbing a copy of The Symptoms’ new CD, “Middle Finger Romance,” from the wooden table in front of him. ” ‘Yr Cool’ is 3½ or 4 minutes long.”
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Decman conceded: “Yeah, but that’s a special song.”
“About a special girl,” Bergstrand added.
The three bandmates, sitting in the backyard of a north Denver house shared by Bergstrand and Hot IQs frontman Eli Mishkin, lose themselves momentarily in a shared moment before Burleson wraps: “She is special.”
As the longest track on “Middle Finger Romance,” which is the focal point the band’s CD-release party Saturday at the Hi-Dive, “Yr Cool” is about the band’s friend, Tara, a former bartender at the Hi-Dive. “I hope your boyfriend doesn’t take this the wrong way/But Tara I think you’re cool and I hope that we can be friends,” it yelps.
The song is a joyous celebration of bar-based kinship, and it is ebulliently representative of The Symptoms’ fun-
loving storytelling that comes via half-
spoken, nonrhyming shout-outs. When they’re not writing about a night out in Denver, they’re remembering wayward promoters (Decman’s Dylanesque
storytelling in “Reno”) or memorializing Decman’s greyhounds (“Leda Hyena,” and yes, that is she on the cover of “Middle Finger Romance,” which Bergstrand designed).
The band’s sound and musical D.I.Y. philosophy has its roots, but you won’t find them in Denver. Bergstrand got an e-mail earlier this week from an old friend that read: “(The new record) sounds like a mixture of Jet Lucas and The Knives,” referencing the Ohio bands formerly including Bergstrand and Decman, respectively.
“And that’s the second friend who’s said that,” Bergstrand said.
Added Decman, “Yeah, but we’re more driven than The Knives and more syncopated than Jet Lucas.”
Bergstrand and Decman, who share the vocal duties in The Symptoms a la John Doe and Exene Cervenka of X, met in Athens, Ohio, while she was getting her master’s of fine arts degree in painting and he was getting his bachelor’s in visual communications, both at Ohio University. Decman moved to Denver with a boy in late 2001, and Bergstand followed in mid-2002 to work for the Longmont Times-Call, where he still serves as the paper’s graphics editor.
They unexpectedly ran into each other at a Makers show at the Bluebird Theatre in 2002, and that chance meeting – and a post-show talk at the P.S. Lounge – begat The Symptoms. The band’s history reads like a walking tour of Denver’s punk rock landmarks. They played with drummer Steve Shiramizu for a while before he retired, his final show a sweaty, cake-fueled night at the Climax Lounge, which also happened to be the first time Burleson saw the band.
“I almost walked up to Sonya and said, ‘I really like what you’re doing,’ but instead I just got really drunk and went home,” said Burleson, who is affectionately called “No. 3” by his bandmates and friends because he was the band’s third drummer. (Talk of the second drummer brings a hush over the group, and it’s agreed he’ll be referred to as The Drummer Who Shant Be Named.)
A few months later, Bergstrand and Decman were drowning their sorrows about the aforementioned Drummer over beers at La Pasadita when they overheard some kids at a nearby table talking about “the scene.” Later that night, Decman recognized one of them – Burleson – at a 15th St. Tavern show, and she approached him to talk about this so-called “scene.”
It wasn’t long before Burleson, also a member of the now-defunct band The Affairs, became No. 3 and played his first gig with The Symptoms at the Larimer Lounge. And with his bandmates, Burleson has watched the scene expand and mature.
“I remember seeing Bright Channel at the Hipster Youth Halfway House when they were first getting started, and it’s just grown from there,” Burleson said.
Added Decman: “When I first came to town I didn’t think there was that much diversity in the scene. But now there’s a much wider style of music being played.”
Thanks, in part, to The Symptoms.
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
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MORRIS DAY & THE TIME The film “Purple Rain” was marked by several epic scenes, only a few of which were music-related. But as impressive as any Prince performance in the movie is Morris Day & The Time’s take on Twin Cities funk classics such as “The Bird” and “Jungle Love.” The songs were giant compositions, and Day’s energy was beyond infectious. The band, known as Prince’s opening band in the early ’80s before it broke up, opens the bill Sunday at Coors Amphitheatre.
30 SECONDS TO MARS Some bands have star power, and others have Star power. 30 Seconds to Mars and its frontman Jared Leto (who went from TV’s cuddly “My So-Called Life” to film’s troubling “Requiem For a Dream” in less than six years) will throw down their Star power Monday at their Bluebird gig.
-Ricardo Baca
