Untied States – Instant Everything, Constant Nothing

Untied States - Instant Everything, Constant Nothing

It’s been a while since Untied States put out its last full — and excellent — album Retail Detail, but Instant Everything, Constant Nothing proves that the band hasn’t been twiddling its thumbs. The album picks up where the last left off: equal parts experimental expression and solid post-punk, it delivers on the band’s past promise. Even if band members Skip and Colin remain the only constant members of Untied States, they seem always to find like-minded collaborators to flesh out the compositions.

This recording marks Untied States’ leap to a more outfitted recording studio than had been the case in the past. There wasn’t anything wrong with doing this kind of music on a budget in the past, but this album sounds bigger and more complete somehow. “These Dead Birds,” a track that had been released between albums, shows off the band’s wilder side. It’s non-linear and jagged, moving through passages that veer from pacific to incendiary. That’s part of what Untied States does so well: give you something that you can easily digest and then punch you in the face. There aren’t many bands who can switch from pretty to intense or swing from expected to unexpected with the same kind of command over the material. “Unsilvered Mirrors” is another example of this Untied States way of doing things. It’s kaledioscopic where “Holding Up Walls” is direct and forceful.

There’s always a tension between the melodic and the aggressive in Untied States. The melodies rarely go where you expect them to and they often involve a few discordant guitar notes to barb themselves (a good example would be the charging “Not Fences, Mere Masks”). The soaring mini-choruses of “Delusions Are Grander” get a real working-over in other parts of the song, where the id triumphs over the rational. There’s a near-constant, low-volume chaos of electronic noise that haunts these tracks. Sometimes the electronics bubble up to the surface, as on the single “Bye Bye Bi-Polar,” a sharp example of all the things the band does well. It’s an object lesson for developing bands in how to walk the line between creative experimentalism and self-indulgent noise. While this song stays away from the trap of solipsistic navel-gazing, many others wouldn’t have been able to keep from the temptation. The song knows just how long to test your patience, just how long to confuse you, and just how to bring you back to its center before spinning your head again.

Every track on this album reveals something of the band’s creativity, right down to the noisy bumps in the road of “Wrestling With Entropy in the Rehabbed Factory,” with its slightly Radiohead overtones. Opening track “Gorilla the Bull” is in some ways the most conventional of the tracks here, and even it has sections that are like sonic tornadoes. It’s always a roller coaster. You never know what’s coming next with these guys, and that’s what makes for compelling listening. What a great way to end 2009, and let’s hope Untied States doesn’t wait another few years to follow up on this one.