Being Dead become chaotic good on EELS

Their live sets are tight but instinctively fun, and their recordings bottle that energy, taking on colourings from concise experiments. The Austin band still identify as a duo, songs built around the gawkily twinned vocals of Falcon Bitch and Schmoofy (fka Gumball), who on stage take it in turns to play drummer and guitarist. More recently, bassist Nicole Roman-Johnston has rounded out the live sound, and also brings some joyful moments to EELS, the band’s second album. What unfolds into a thrilling ride through a barrage of ideas from one of the most imaginative and infectious bands to come out of the US this decade.

Being Dead never fall squarely into being punk, their music seamlessly absorbing idioms from Americana, slacker indie and even advertising jingles. (This is of course far more punk than ripping your jeans, shouting whatever and wondering if this is how it felt to be Joe Strummer.) The lesson they take from punk is that anything goes, so you might as well keep it interesting. EELS is packed with two-minutes-or-less tracks that dive down some surprising rabbit hole, while its longer tunes knit together equally contrasting ideas with real flare. All of this is set against an insistent scratching pulse that gives everything a giddy nervous energy, just one way in which the band might invite comparison to Parquet Courts.

Though the shorter numbers are not to be dismissed, it is really on the songs that knit together more ideas where you appreciate the band’s creative flare. “Van Goes”, shows how the band are capable of using every element of a composition to serve its purpose. After an aptly churning intro, the verse has Falcon Bitch setting up the situation of an ideal job against a juddering pulse, before an urgent call and response bitterly interjects, “How do you like it now?” Then, overlapping voices express discontent and irresolution, the phrase “gotta be another way” rising to the surface. The second verse introduces these fun builds but still keeping the focus on meaning. “Are you asking me to work some more?”, the line sets up, with a fun “oohhhhh” rising but then hitting an impotent conclusion that turns it into a meek “ok”, capturing the dullness and inevitability of that outcome. Another fun detail of the song is the use of single words to underscore lines while punctuating the music in their shout-out delivery. As the twin voices contemplate alternatives to a day job, Schmoofy muses that he would, “Do what I want no second thought / Hobby!” This sense of play runs through Being Dead’s music, and in moments like this gives it a streak of DEVO, while managing to capture serious ideas all the while.

Of the shorter tracks, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Hurts” is another highlight. Built around a simple (you-guessed-it) rock ‘n’ roll chorus line, it also features a charming B section that is just an ugly sustained industrial bleep. The simple arrangement then quietens out into wonderful a clap along a capella moment, over which Roman-Johnston improvises lines like “Rock and roll will hurt your soul”, audibly giggling in between. This moment is a brilliant compositional breaking of the fourth wall, not directly addressing the audience but exposing the hand of the producer as the deliberately awkward mixing make it clear that this is being recorded over the top of the existing track.

“Rock ‘n’ Roll Hurts” is also one of the moments where the music seems to imitate the advertising jingle (fans will fondly recall the similar “We Are Being Dead” from the band’s first album). “Big Bovine” is another similar but even more striking example. Here, a more traditional song unfolds, with that great Being Dead mix of harmonic shimmer and post-punk grit, before sounding like the radio dial has swirled round to a different station with the hook, “Country boys and country girls, dancing under the Lone Star star” (a neat use of the Lou Reed double word signature). This hook is ingeniously woven twice into this song and makes a return at the end of "Ballerina" later in the album, recurring like some radio ad you can’t escape.

EELS is good chaos, an album bursting with ideas. Some tracks form immediate, short-form experiments, which offer the listener a kind of creative intimacy, even if they do not always leave such a lasting impression. These coalesce well with the more developed songs, which themselves keep the listener on their toes. The collection is inventive yet grounded and unpretentious, a genuinely modern interpretation on the tenets of punk that still carry weight.