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One of life's difficult tasks is discovering a way to take pride in completing the daily cycle of human existence--to honor work, social and family relations, or a trip to the laundromat, by performing each obligation with elaborate care. Idealists say if you have a job to do, do it well. It's a nice theory on paper, but in practice its one flaw is encouraging extremity over moderation. Versus guitarist James Baluyut displays exuberance in most areas, but especially in unruly ones: smoking ("We all smoke like fiends"); drinking ("I think I'm spending too much money on drinking"); and fighting with his older brother and bandmate, Richard ("We're always ready to kill each other after the first three or four weeks on tour"). But most important, Baluyut and the rest of Versus are respectful of performing the songs they spent over a year writing and recording for their third full-length album, Two Cents Plus Tax (Caroline). Calling from a tour stop in Toronto, the guitarist can't seem to single out his personal favorite in the band's updated repertoire. "I'm just excited to be playing any of them," Baluyut says. "They're still really fresh to us, because we were a lot more deliberate with this album, making sure everything was right." This painstaking collaboration of all four members on Two Cents Plus Tax explains why it's been nearly two years since Versus' last release. Between the marbleized vocals shared by bassist Fontaine Toups and Richard Baluyut and the rising, pendulous guitar parts, the album displays a summational warmth punctuated by wide fields of static friction. The pop grooves are tempered by this ever-present tension, which loops and twangs around succinct lyrical postulations. Versus has been hinting at this sound for years, but it's never been so seamless and luxuriant. Baluyut partially attributes this to overcoming the growing pains that accompanied the recording of 1996's Secret Swingers. Then-drummer Ed Baluyut was in the process of leaving the band for a teaching career, and his younger brother James was brought into the studio to replace him. "I couldn't really play that well," admits Baluyut. "So Ed played on the record and I ended up playing second guitar." Afterward, new drummer Pat Ramos joined the group. With half the songs written during this changing of the guard and half of them composed prior to the youngest Baluyut's arrival, the process was a little patchy. While it displayed promise in several thoughtful tracks, Secret Swingers had the distant tone of a band in flux. "On this record, I think everybody's roles are a little more defined," Baluyut says. "Richard is concentrating on singing more, I handle a lot of the guitar duties. It just makes for easier songwriting, and we came up with this album in a very natural manner. We have a better chemistry now that we've been playing as this band for a couple of years." The most alluring connection is the one made with the vocal interplay of Toups and Richard Baluyut. As pronounced as a lipstick smudge on a white dinner napkin, Toups' clear voice draws out the camouflaged urgency in Baluyut's lines, especially on "Crazy-Maker," a slowpoke track that makes household chores seem almost ethereal. In "Spastic Reaction," the duo unfurls its best nod to Yo La Tengo as Toups plays Georgia Hubley to Baluyut's Ira Kaplan. "Make your man sleep on the couch/until you get over your headache," he wearily intones. "He'll dedicate a song to his girlfriend/so she'll forget that he cheated," she returns with a don't-fuck-with-me subtlety. The Baluyut brothers and Ramos are Detroit natives and devout hockey fans; they've brought rollerblades and sticks on the road in order to physically express any suppressed resentment or road rage, especially the big brother/little brother tension. "We know each other so well that it's good for playing, but we do fight a lot," admits Baluyut. "And any type of fight that crops up, everyone else tends to jump in. It's just like hockey: You have to let everyone fight out their frustrations so they can forget about it. You can't bottle things up when you're in a van for five weeks." "It's very un-bandlike to be into sports, I guess," Baluyut adds. Then his voice brightens. "But we're also into smoking, lots of red meat--all the things that are unfashionable for bands these days." |
