Actions and Indications

Give these guys some credit for sticking with the program. For one, they're from Seattle — okay, Tacoma. And they're very screamy and fast and indecipherable, sort of a slightly less impatient Alice In Chains with a very hip low sincerity factor. They played D.I.Y. with the Sub Pop label for their first three records, went ambitiously astray by signing with Hollywood Records (for the deeply off-track Spanaway), then did the cool right thing by returning to indie Merge. Actions and Indications is all proper punk roots with too much guitar and fearsome early-'80s vocalizing, thanks to fretblazers Wade Neal and Clint Werner, and singer Aaron Stauffer. "Antilyrical" is exactly that, and "Thru the Window" has exactly four perfect David Bowie moments, not that it would necessarily please the band to know that. "Warsaw" is a classically anxious grunge tune, as is "Against the Sky," where you can't make out a thing, lyrically speaking. So the question is: if Seaweed has all the perfect feist and punkambulation, why is it so...ho-hum? One of the great mysteries of superloud, well-intended garage.