ne look at the charts will reveal that the harsh guitar textures associated with late ‘70s “post-punk” are now quite acceptable as American pop product (they’ve been huge in England since the Pixies at least), so what makes Days Vs. Nights, the debut release from Philadelphia quartet Trouble Everyday, so exceptional may not be immediately clear. You could even sum them up as a Franz Ferdinand that takes shit really seriously if you don’t want to risk sounding easy to please.

To paraphrase what Rob Sheffield once wrote of the Ramones, Trouble Everyday build their music out of a crass fantasy, playing the giddiest peaks of their favorite songs, leaving all the other business for their proggier peers. Unlike the Ramones, their touchstones are immortal underground anthems like “Debaser”, “Academy Fight Song” and “Public Image” rather than “Henry VIII, I Am” and “Palisades Park”. That part of a Les Savy Fav track you can sing along with, that one song they’re always playing on the college radio station, that one number that gets everybody jumping a little higher than everything else. It’s as if they’re trying to make Chairs Missing push like Pink Flag, distilling a quarter century of innovation and exploration into a sonic rush that any adolescent could appreciate. Anyone who thinks this isn’t a commendable feat probably worries too much about the historical value of their precedents, rather than enjoying the actual musical pleasures. For fans of the sound, the purity and consistency of this CD is more than enough relevance.

Buzzsaw guitar and a throbbing rhythm that splits the difference between pummel and groove are the first thing you hear, followed by layers of caustic yet melodic guitars (Bruce Gilbert and Joey Santiago going *click!*, Interpol getting their testicles electrocuted—yet somehow their hair still looks good) and singer Kyle Costill voicing his frustration in a brief series of lines until the band joins him in an anxious cheerleader chant (it wouldn’t be out of place if they started yelling BE! NEUROTIC! B! E! NEUROTIC!). The voices and guitars bob and weave over the beat, as the tension keeps ratcheting higher before SNAP! New song. Then another. “Written In Snakes” slows things to a crawl for oh, two minutes, and then they’re stomping their feet and drone strumming again while we slam our heads into the stereo speaker in sympathy. After all, we’re pissed off that people don’t say what they mean, that people lead bullshit lives, that all this running around isn’t going to get us anywhere, that they’re failing you, that you’re failing them, that this isn’t as bad as it gets. Well, at least when Trouble Everyday is reminding us.

It’s not until the last third that the wall they keep bashing against starts to give way. “Connection” is the sound of somebody deciding to make that leap, move to that town, commit to that cause, be with that person (“It’s getting serious—I want to be serious”). And “What’s Wrong (With Always Being Right)” is the leap itself, guitars vast and ringing rather than claustrophobic (though the beat’s still persistent as fuck), our hero “feeling suspicious but [with] nowhere to hide”, surrendering to vulnerability and praying he won’t regret it while killing you softly with five repeated notes on a keyboard. “It Can Never Be Done” is an instrumental because they don’t know what happens next either (hint: it involves the repeat button on your CD player). Actually, judging by the “you’re welcome” found in the liner notes, they might know that too.

STYLUSMAGAZINE.COM'S ALBUM OF THE WEEK - AUGUST 15 - AUGUST 21, 2004