THE SHOCK OF THE NEW
Sunny Day Real Estate, The Rising Tide (Time Bomb)

Of all the aging indie-punk outfits from the early 90's heyday, that elusive brief period when buzzy guitars met math-rock and exploded with all the excitement of the first punk scenes, none has been more stubborn in the face of success than Sunny Day Real Estate. After an emotional breakup, a tormenting solo outing by frontman Jeremy Enigk, an ascendant reunion and triumphant return with 1998's best album "How It Feels To Be Something On", and an inevitable falling out with Sub Pop, listeners have gotten all to used to the band's flirting with success with a tentative air. This confused stance, evident in their music, has always been one of the backbones in its inherent excitement: you just knew deep down that the confusion and chaos of a song like "Theo B" was its most telling and important characteristic. The less stated and obvious, the better. Although each of this group's subsequent releases have been original and cathartic expressions, none have (until now) reached a critical mass of coherence and alertness that pushed the band into new, uncertain areas: studio majesty, theatrical production, and lyrics that were overt rather than sublime have never been on their plate.

Behold the new model, a slick (yes, it is), fashionable, retro (yes, again), and uncharacteristically rich effort from a band that had all but thumped its way into a corner. What the hell were they supposed to have done at this point, anyway? They had predicted the collapse of bass-guitar-drum rock two years ago, deep in a track called "The Shark's Own Private Fuck", with its trilling strings and anguished falsetto, and now every promise is fulfilled. For not only is "The Rising Tide" the best Sunny day album, it is the album they had been intent on making years ago but didn't have the foresight or experience required for such a dynamic leap. The emotion is here, in Enigk's most impressive vocal performances to date, alongside his own roller-coaster bass runs (Joe Skyward, ex-Posie who was drafted to fill that role for last year's tour, will presumably be back for the next set of dates). The guitars are no longer the primary instrument, having been replaced by piano, strings, and enough synthesizer currents to start an 80's revival. The songwriting is so accomplished and sophisticated that the other albums sound like demo tapes of song fragments by comparison. The production (by Lou Giordano) belongs alongside Dave Fridmann's efforts with Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips, deep and awe-inspiring moments of beauty, and with all the cohesiveness lacking in those two bands' recent excursions into the realm of concept-punk. Simply put, "The Rising Tide" is an album that will disappoint many of this band's purists, those whose fingers are permanently fixed in the devil-horns position and whose cries for "Seven!!!" during the quiet moments of the band's 1999 tour seemed, well, a bit beside the point.

The album starts off with songs that sound closest to their previous material, but ends light years away. Ironically or by design, the opening two tracks seem veritable outtakes from their previous efforts in terms of character and performance. "Killed By An Angel" pushes a revolving riff that descends into 60's pop psychedelia, sort of a power-hybrid of their own "Pillars" with The Dream Syndicate, and a tasty bridge that dissolves every shimmering melody from their entire catalog into twenty seconds of sound. It crashes dynamically to the ground, as many songs on the album do, leaving you awash in feedback, breathless and excited, but curiously not confused. This is the newness of their sound, a completeness that rivals anything they've attempted before.

"One" follows, albeit with a somewhat mundane lyric about "we" being "one" (you wonder the meaning of Sunny Day's lyrics often, but it won't be hard to figure this one out, folks). Here, drummer William Goldsmith is all over the place, mixing diverse time signatures as the song propels itself toward order, blasting itself from a repeated riff. It's a Sunny Day song alright, a pivotal comparison, as it's the last thing you'll hear that sounds remotely like "typical" Sunny Day.

The next track, "Rain Song", immediately brought to mind the Beatles' "Across the Universe" in its beauty, and it's not a stretch: Enigk's solo work blazed quite a trail that seemed rather unrealized on "How It Feels", but here it all comes to a shocking climax. As synthesized waves and piano riffs ascend, Enigk loses himself in the song, adding a few "la-la-la's" before detaching completely, and what started as a simple acoustic melody has developed into a subtle masterpiece. It's punk's version of Love's "Forever Changes", and the most poignant moment in their entire career.

The next two songs seem inseparable, as they pretty much maintain a passion throughout. It's also here you'll notice how rich their sound has become, and what a hand Dan Hoerner deserves for adding a slicing counterpoint guitar to Enigk's arpeggiated tones. "Disappear" has an early-U2 feel, as did a whole lot of their earlier work, but when its bridge blows through atop yet another infectious melody, the song explodes. Following similarly, "Snibe" will undoubtedly be the most crowd-pleasing number of the new set. Its chaotic lyric (something about our seeming disconnecting from humanity, I'll guess) is blurted out in forceful yelps atop a strutting chord progression and bass jabs that recall the best Brit-pop, and a bizarre distorted-vocal middle-eight that stays in rhythm. You'll want to hear it again immediately after it's over.

"The Ocean" was the number that was previewed to the public courtesy Time Bomb's official site, and rather ironically, it's brutally evident at this point how it didn't work as well standing on its own for two months. Surrounded by ten other songs as part of a whole, it makes much more sense. The song brings to mind (again) the Beatles, with a circular riff similar to "Because" or "Carry That Weight" from "Abbey Road", its physics increasing in intensity as it progresses. It's important perhaps to note that the version here is different from the pre-released MP3 version, a little more slicked-down with harmonizing vocals from Enigk and a lower guitar level. It's more effective in this manner, I think, emphasizing yet another departure from the past: a desire to let the melody speak for itself without banging you over the head.

"Fool In the Photograph" and "Tearing in My Heart" follow, and here the walls come crashing down. All semblance of emo-punk past is destroyed, the band sounding comfortably settled into a pop mode at this point, and you're waiting for it by now. The minor chords of "Fool" hide a tiny Middle-Eastern flavored melody (maybe leftovers from what now appears to be a flirtation on the last album), with gargantuan riffs and Enigk's flying falsetto. As "Tearing" begins on its heels, and with a little sampled-atmospheric studio embellishment thrown in, you'll imagine you stumbled upon the great lost Donovan Leitch tapes, synthesizers carrying a repeated riff away, leaving behind its simple message, a casual lyric about restoration and renewal of a fractured life. A genuinely dynamic moment.

At this point, the aforementioned die-hards will have reverted back to their bootleg tapes in disgust, crying "sellout!" and imagining how they're going to sneak this one in a stack of buy-backs at the local used CD store. Fine, because the last three songs are unquestionably the most exciting songs I've heard from any band this year, and for the simple reason that they are anything BUT "typical" Sunny Day songs makes it all the sweeter. Debate will likely rage on in certain circles about the merits of these songs from this highly-anticipated album, and let it: this band has evolved in two years beyond the wildest dreams of anyone who can sit through "Television", "Faces In Disguise", and the final title track. It's as though it was designed to happen, the most challenging material saved for last.

A spastic, gurgling electronic effect smacks into the main spark of "Television", and immediately you're laughing in joyous bliss: it's a Sunny Day cover of Modern English! Everybody pogo! You're moving the chairs out of the way, dancing like Molly Ringwald in the library in "The Breakfast Club", breaking out the skinny ties, the whole bit. After the initial shock is over, you're seeing the song for what it really is: a long-overdue paean to the progenitors of power-pop, going back beyond New Order to XTC and The Undertones, settling somewhere in the New York of 1978, with literally hundreds of punk-pop bands whose names always started with the article "the", bands whose early focus became the roots of everything Sunny Day has tried to do, and now triumphed with. "Television" is a shock, like Black Flag's unlikely "TV Party", or Talking Heads' daring "Remain In Light", steps once taken that cannot be reversed, a quantum leap from emo to eros, and it's a love song, after all that. You won't think the same about these guys once you hear it.

"Faces In Disguise" will probably cause the most consternation, and for good reason. You were expecting "Television" to be an anomaly, for them to get back to the basics of the familiar, but it won't happen. The door is blown open, and now it's the big kahuna. Huge synthesizer riffs and an almost comical vocal hook recall early (I said early) Human League or The Cure, "Faces In Disguise" not being a metaphor, but the basis of the entire song (its opposite lyric being "not a trace of desire"). Bryan Ferry waits in the wings, nodding his head approvingly, until about halfway through, the entire thing takes flight, rocketing on the force of Enigk's explosive falsetto again, and what sounds like a swarm of hornets chanting the melody. By the time the ending background vocal gets going you're caught up in it, hypnotized by its wealthy shimmer. I'm going to make a comparison here, and it's going to hurt a few of you, but it's something that, if played in the largest 40,000-seat arena, could compete with the best of 'em. Good grief, it's a terrific song.

At the end of the album is the title song, a gem of such impressive heart and character and such complex construction that to imagine this band playing, say, "Rodeo Jones" again is almost laughable. The song displays a little fractured moment from the album's prior emotions, as though to summarize and clarify. I hear Three O'Clock's Michael Quercio, and The Edge's shattering guitar, and a little mid-80's 4AD Cocteau Twins-ish glitter, and a long synthesized ending that extends so far and wide you're waiting for a drum-and-bass beat to kick in, smiling as they leave you wondering where in the hell all this came from, this album of prettiness and light and resolution and promise.

Without question, you could despise this record. You could very well claim it is a blatant attempt at pop music (it succeeds), or characterize it as a phenomenal conceit, a record made by people whose main focus has shifted from despairing, chaotic rock to pleasant, charming melody. But you won't ever forget it. Not too soon, anyway.

I remember the first time I heard the Clash's "Train In Vain". I was shocked, disappointed, and hurt. For me, the end was near. I entirely expected my sister to go raiding my Jam and Gang of Four albums, playing them with her mall-rat friends in the squeaky-clean privacy of her bedroom, door shut and lipstick out, giggling and singing along to "Boy About Town", raping my only salvation right in front of me, making my life miserable by taking away the only thing I had in this God-forsaken world. Well, she never borrowed them. But I do recall asking her to let me borrow the Go-Go's "Beauty and the Beat" once to impress my girlfriend.