Good God, it's been too many moons since Angry Ian was ponying up sentiments
like "The police will not be excused!/ The police will not behave!" in that voice
he shouts in 'til it's a little hoarse. And whilst it's nice to welcome Ian McKaye
back with open arms, do know that the Embrace, these days, will be with an older
man, man. Essentially on retirement from Fugazi duties, Mr. Dischord now sits
down when he performs, legs crossed, baritone guitar nestled in his lap, making
eyes at the other half of his new duo: love-interest Amy Farina, the girl who's
hit the skins for folk like the Warmers and the Secret Stars through the years.
They play together; both sing, oft at once; everything's divided by two, shared
by the two, cleft in twain, measured equally. Hence the moniker. And, not surprisingly,
the pair play pretty quiet. If you're the kind of staying-true acolyte wanting
to measure MacKaye, at 42, by what he did at 17, The Evens, actually, play really,
really quiet. Of course, such a reactionary reaction — and, if you're still
seeing red, possibly dis-ing dismissal — will miss all the charms of the
union's uncluttered, reined-in sound, which avoids confrontation and ostentatiousness
and instead works hard to establish a sense of tension; its downplayed moods
seem suspiciously not-relaxed and much more mighty-uptighty and tightly-wound,
wound tighter than a magnet's coil. They play slow, but it's slow in the way
that Low once did, a sort of punk-rock rebellion against speed and belligerence,
the focused intensity to The Evens' simple, stripped-down songs smoldering, but
never getting to musical combustion. These restrained strums and brushed drums
aren't the musical language cats're used to hearing Angry Ian talking in; but
he still sings things like "They'll tell you everything/ But they won't tell
you anything," and still makes music that matters, to him, in a most meaningful
way.
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