With a fresh blend of venom and apathy, indie-folk/rock crew All We Seabees' three-chord battle charge, "Alt Country," knocks the wind out of those who romanticize new surroundings, be it Music City or Williamsburg.
"Everyone's returning back to the South/ Though they don't really mean it/ It carries no clout," principal Seabee Bryan Fox intones.
Fox has the right and the nerve to pore through this subject. He's a transplant himself, having moved his band to Nashville from Detroit in 2006. But MKultra, the band's second 2008 release, makes it clear they didn't head south to grow some fake roots.
Several songs, such as the wide-open "Bankers on Coke," have a decidedly wintry, Northern air, with twiddling passages and placid, composed melodies that recall the easiest-to-swallow bits of Jim O'Rourke.
Energetic peaks, such as "Alt Country" and "Howard," find Fox snapping into the Colin Meloy/Jeff Magnum/Eef Barzelay school of reedy, concise delivery.
What the band has opted to take from its new town is its wealth of charitable talents. Zachary Gresham, front man for local art-rock trio Umbrella Tree, recorded the album in his own Scoliosis the Studio, and the disc is being released by UT's record label, Cephalopod.
All We Seabees celebrate the release of MKultra at 9 p.m. Sat., Sept. 6, at The Basement (1604 Eighth Ave. S., 254-8006). Admission is $7.
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