Nothing works as a carrot to get me to investigate a new band quite as well as comparing them favorably to a band that I already appreciate. I'm not one of those guys who becomes a fan of a really good band and subsequently wants to hear 10 copies of that band. But I don't mind hearing how that artist has influenced others, or how someone else has drawn from the same musical influences that one of my favorite artists has. But then, when I actually sit down and listen to the new band, I'm tempted to compare them to my already established favorite. So these sorts of comparisons are a double-edged sword, it seems.

I bring this up because one of the first things that I heard about sister-fronted rock band Meg & Dia was that they were like "Eisley plus Gatorade". I confessed my love for Eisley, a young band full of sibling wunderkinds who crafted imaginative pop songs in the vein of Sixpence None the Richer back in 2005, and that love is still going strong. So naturally, I had high hopes for Meg & Dia. Listening to their first full-fledged album as a band, entitled Something Real, I'm definitely seeing that the comparison is apt, and yet it's incomplete. Eisley tends to work fanciful melodies and fairy tale language (with a side of childhood nightmares here and there) into their fairly sweet, poppy sound; Meg & Dia, by comparison, are a little more crunchy and a little more down to Earth. Their songs are more rock-oriented, scaling back to coffeehouse folk here and there (which was their main style before forming a full band), and often keeping the focus on fractured relationships - the nervous young girl looking forward to marrying a man she hardly knows, the scorned woman who vows to get revenge, the two-timing husband, things like that. Something Real might seem like a bit of a pretentious title (what, like we've never heard songs about real life before?), but in this context, it makes sense - they're imaginative, but writing about situations that involve realistic people instead of fantasy stories. "Eisley plus Gatorade" might describe the music in some cases, but examining the lyrics a bit closer, it sounds to me like "Eisley plus bubblegum, minus magical sorcerer's potion, plus a shot of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes." That's not to say that these lovely ladies can't sing - on the contrary, their sisterly voices blend well together. It's just that the juxtaposition of youthful exuberance in the music doesn't always gel with the darker themes in the lyrics. It depends on the song, I suppose.

None of this to say that Meg & Dia's music isn't fun to listen to. There's something defiant about the way that they can almost cause you to miss the depths of the lyrics as they chirp away over a bouncy, edgy guitar riff. We're not talking obnoxious fake pop-punk with no depth a la Avril Lavigne here - it's more like some of those poppy girl-rock groups that were popular in the 90's whose names are escaping me right now. And there's nothing wrong with hearkening back to that era in my book, except for some small problems later in the album when the style gets a bit repetitive. They'd probably have to tweak their sound a bit to really stand out in the larger pool of mainstream music, but they seem to have done well enough for themselves so far, hitting the road with Anberlin in early 2007 and then singing on for the Warped Tour later in the year. Who knows, maybe these Korean sisters have great things ahead of them. (Yeah, they're Korean, despite the fact that their last name, "Frampton", isn't one of the like 12 surnames that exist in all of Korea. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they're hapa.) All I can say for sure is that I'd improve a few small things, but I like them well enough so far. They're off to a humble but respectable start here.

Monster
He battered his tiny fists to feel something
Wondered what it's like to touch, to feel something...
The first track is one of the album's most rocking tunes, hooking the listener immediately with peppy drums and driving, muddy guitars. It's about a guy who is so desperate to be loved that he is apparently trying to force a girl to love him. The girls' voices cry out with a bit of irony during the verses, and more of a pained expression during the chorus, which is initially a calm moment where the song catches its breath, but it kind of gets pulled back into the overall aggression. It's a short little burst of energy, but an effective one - catchy enough to be a single, well-phrased enough to be memorable, and more than a bit haunting if you're really listening.

Roses
Why are some girls so naive?
He didn't unbutton your blouse to see
A better view of your heart
Oh yeah, can't blame you for trying...
More of a mid-tempo, pop-friendly rock song follows next - this one's got such an indelible, bouncing little melody to it that it easily wins the title of "My Personal Favorite Song on the Album". It almost seems like it might be the woman's perspective on "Monster", or perhaps an outsider looking in at the innocent girl who's being wooed by a creepy guy, and all the while she's shaking her head and wondering if she can't talk some sense into the poor thing. Roses are a symbol of affection, but their use in this song seems to indicate a facade, a cheap trick used to win the affections of someone who really should know better. There's a part of this naive young girl who wants to be more than just a prize to win - she's more interested in wearing her comfortable sneakers, lighting up a cigarette, and telling this boy to buzz off, but perhaps she's cared of how he'll react, or perhaps she'd feel guilty for causing him the pain of rejection. Either way, there are some interesting gender politics at play here. One thing's for sure, you'll be singing along to the chorus in no time, as the hiss of the cymbals fills in the space between each syllable - "I - don't - e - ven - know - you." It definitely sticks in my head like no other song on this record.

Tell Mary
After the first touch, her skirt boring
Her voice deep and charming at first
You could make her come back once in a while...
This ballad, which starts off with acoustic guitar and piano, feels a little clunky at first, like it's too early in the song sequence, but it's an interesting little tune about falling out of love that develops a bit more crunch as it goes, working up an emotional climax that threatens to make the old mascara run. As in "Roses", Dia plays the role of a friend observing the guy/girl interaction, but this time she seems to be addressing the guy who's working up the courage to leave his lover "under a cheap July sky". That phrasing is enough to suggest that their relationship has become dull, and there are other hints at his boredom along the way. What's puzzling is the line, "You fell in love with a girl you knew" - it could mean that there's another girl in the picture, one who's younger and presumably more interesting to him, or it could just be an admission that he once knew the girl he's now leaving but feels like she's become a stranger. It's a tragic but lovely song in either case.

Indiana
Frail, gothic eyes
A damsel, a somber sky
She faints on isles
Mademoiselle, hold tight your tongue...
The most defiant rocker on the record wastes no time with its slicing electric guitars and its girlish declaration that "I can do whatever I want like you!" There's a lot of thrashing about in this one, almost to the point where the need to cry out a solid melodic hook over the loud electricity threatens to obscure the lyrics - it's one of those songs that you'll remember, but you might have a hard time coming back and explaining what it's all about. "Indiana" appears to be the name of the song's protagonist, instead of the state where the song takes place (in other words, they're not trying to write a song for Sufjan Stevens), and this girl appears to have a strong feminist streak, refusing to be silenced and refusing to be paired off to some important so-and-so at her mother's whim. The words are vague enough that I can only guess at the storyline, but I've heard hints of a literary source that inspired the song, so there's definitely a deeper story to be uncovered here. For those who don't want to do all the work, though, just enjoy the attitude-laden guitar heroics.

Masterpiece
Done by the hands of a broken artist
You painted black where my naked heart is
I finally know what wrong is
Now I finally know that you bleed for nothing...
Looks can be deceiving - I've heard about a million peppy pop songs where the singer describes him or herself as being created by a brilliant artist, so I'm kind of trained to pick up on that metaphor and think that means such a song is about God. But there's a different creator at work here - a "broken artist" who "bleeds for nothing". This is the work of a man's hands, trying to recreate a woman into something he wants her to be. And it should already be evident from the last few songs that this is the sort of treatment that Meg & Dia will have none of. (I don't intend to make them out as man-eating femi-nazis or anything, but obviously they've had a few friends who have managed to hook up with really rotten guys - or they have a few shady boyfriends of their own.) This song walks the line between your typical acoustic guitar strumming and more of a punchy rhythm in the chorus - another one of those melodies that sticks but makes it easy to miss the words flying by. That happens with a lot of Meg & Dia's songs, now that I realize it - I catch phrases on first or second glance that make the songs appear to be about happier things than they really are, but once I explore them more deeply, I can't exactly complain about what's really being said.

Rebecca
Rush down the stairs to that man
Mr. Summer, he nodded his head
With laughter in his eyes, a smirk followed close behind
We're strangers, but I'm sure we should be married...
The album's centerpiece punches a hole in the wall of poppy rock sounds, reducing the band to just the two sisters - Meg's echoing piano, Dia's uneasy but strikingly pretty vocals, and a tiny bit of crowd ambience. This is a haunting little waltz if I've ever heard one, complete with a restless melody that seems to cycle around in search of a resolved chord that it can't quite find. I think it's beautiful, but some might find it a shade unsettling. This one definitely has some literary aspirations, laying out a stately setting where a young servant girl is being pushed at an older, presumably important, man named Max. This time, the girl seems quite willing, despite being young and nervous - she's never been in love and likely doesn't know how to differentiate between a romance of her own choosing and the cold, arranged marriage that's been romanticized and exaggerated for her. Apparently she's the replacement for a former wife who either died or was unceremoniously dumped for this younger woman - or even worse, the protagonist is to be a mistress or concubine. The story doesn't sound all that romantic, even though the girl believes it is, and the melody haunts the long corridors of Max's estate with its false pretenses of love.

Nineteen Stars
Don't tell me it doesn't matter
I'll tell you what matters
Bare feet in the summer
Open windows at night...
The album starts to settle into a bit of a mid-tempo pattern in the back half, which is unfortunate - it starts to make the individual nuances of each song harder for me to pick out. The difference between what could have been and what actually is becomes most apparent in this schizophrenic little song, which for the most part, has too lax of a rhythm to really work for me, despite its insistence on pounding its chorus of "Stay awake, stay awake, survive!" into my head. There's just one piece of the song - the second verse - that suddenly comes alive with quick, rolling drums, and a speedy, almost punkish guitar riff, like it was dropped in by a different band entirely. The melody and pacing of the lyrics is the same as the first verse, and it's an ingenious way of changing up a song, but after that, it just settles back into what it was before, which is comparatively much less interesting. Dia is apparently begging a guy to not give up on his life (whether he's contemplating suicide or just throwing it away by drinking constantly - it can be interpreted both ways), basically expressing that she's named a constellation or something after him and she wants to be his reason to live. Lyrically, it's not the girls' finest moment.

Cardigan Weather
You wanted to play this game, I'll play it too
Call me baby, I will show you what this girl can do
A mattress for a coffin suit you very fine
You'll fill me with my others that you sold under the scenes...
This one might be a contender for "finest moment", though. It's another one of those songs that has a deceptively sweet smile on its face, while the lyrics tell a different story. What's cool about this one is that they've reverted into coffeehouse mode, with driving verses that get belted out over staccato acoustic guitar strumming, giving them a jerky and strangely Latin feel. The chorus runs much more smoothly, and it's easy to float away on a little cloud as the girl go into hippy mode with their warm harmonizing and echoing of one another's words - "My, oh my, my alibi, restore my faith in these." All of this appears to be just a seductive distraction when compared to the somewhat venomous verses - she caught her man cheating and now she's digging his proverbial grave. It's a tad demented, but the way that they pull it off with a sly, sexy wink is what really makes it sizzle.

Getaways Turned Holidays
Hide my uniform pride, your arrogant side
I'm aching already
Hide your taciturn, mundane expressions
Affection will carry us a little while more...
As this song grinds along in its rhythm of 6/8, I'm left with conflicting impressions on what it could be about. It could be one of few songs on the album where the girl is actually in love, only the guy she's in love with is a solider stuck in a war overseas that doesn't look like it's going well, and she's back at home trying to deceive herself into thinking he's doing the right thing and being a hero, and she's supposed to support that instead of wishing he could be home. Or it could just be a less personal, but strongly political statement about the nature of war itself. Either way, there are some strongly cynical words here. "I'm prepared to be happy and deceived - I'm supposed to be happy and deceived." This might be one of a few songs on the album where, due to the slower tempo, the loud guitars seem to forced. I enjoy the rolling drums and some of the more subtle dynamics before the noisy power chords come crashing back in, and think the song would have more of an interesting flow to it if they'd let their more primal instincts rest on this one. (But then again, it's about war, so maybe not.)

Courage, Robert
Made love to a baby grand
A tempest refined inside his hands
He had one girl, and one song
Bone fide wine and roulade...
This song has a sweet little lyric that seems to invite seduction rather than fending it off. (See? I told you they weren't man-haters.) A curiously twisting verse melody describes an artist, a man who has a way with words and a way with the piano, and a girl who knows that this secret weapon will get her every time. She asks him to proceed with boldness, to claim "a second chance at love", and she also proves herself to be adept at the verbal fencing, filling the song with rich words such as "roulade" and "concerto" and "aesthete" and "tempest". Once again, a lot of this is easy to miss due to a rather run-of-the-mill rock approach on the chorus - this would have been a good time to experiment with something other than pedal-to-the-medal guitars, which might have been a great strength on some of their other songs, but which proves to be a song-obscuring weakness here.

Setting Up Sunday
Kid, I'm right here, and I'm not leaving
There's no way to make you stay
But I'm saving all my worries
For the day you don't need me...
Hell if I know what this closing song is about. It sounds all lovely and fragile with the two girls' wispy voices weaving around each other in the chorus, and the calls for a childhood lover to stick around even though he seems to be already gone. Basing the song on piano and letting the band build carefully around that proves to be a good move as the album winds down, but the full band approach does mask a bit of the distinctiveness here. I enjoy this one mostly for the sweet vocals - which is true about a lot of tracks, but this and "Nineteen Stars" are the two songs where I have the most difficult time connecting with the lyrics or the music.

So there you have it, that's Meg & Dia in a nutshell. If you wanted Eisley or Sixpence or your other favorite girl-fronted alt-pop group with a little more bittersweet crunch, then have a ball. Just be aware that the rock factor can be a slight weakness at the times when it's not a great strength. I figure they'll probably overcome that as they get more used to the full band instead of just saying, "Here's some songs we wrote on acoustic guitar or piano by ourselves, now let's amp them up". They're at the beginning of their career, so they've got plenty of time to figure out when to use the power they've acquired and when to restrain it.

ALBUM WORTH:
Monster $1.50
Roses $1.50
Tell Mary $1
Indiana $1.50
Masterpiece $1
Rebecca $1.50
Nineteen Stars $.50
Cardigan Weather $1.50
Getaways Turned Holidays $1
Courage, Robert $1
Setting Up Sunday $.50
TOTAL: $12.50

Band Members:
Dia Frampton - Lead vocals
Meg Frampton - Guitar, piano, vocals
Kenji Chan - Guitar
Nicholas Price - Drums

Websites:
http://www.meganddia.com
http://www.myspace.com/megdia

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Hanging With Friends