At last, it's here! I've been waiting for this new album from Seattle-area band The Myriad ever since I saw them perform a nearly show-stealing opening slot on the David Crowder Band's fall tour last year. There are very few bands who I get an overwhelmingly positive feeling about when I'm first exposed to their music in a live setting - I simply don't have a lot of patience for opening bands whose songs I don't know at least a few of. And I had never even heard of these guys before that night. But they had more than enough style and mystique to make that not matter. In the brief time that The Myriad was allotted to share 5 or 6 of their cryptic songs with us, they evoked the same aura of larger-than-life wonder that sent chills down my spine the first time I witnessed a live concert by fellow spirituality-infused modern rock acts such as Future of Forestry, The Listening, Sleeping at Last, and Mute Math. That's really good company for a band to be in. Their album couldn't release soon enough, as far as I was concerned.

Not that the wait for the album stopped me from listening to it or anything. The original due date for their "breakout” album, entitled With Arrows, with Poise, was March 4, 2008. This date had been well advertised, even to the point of being visible on the band's drum kit during their live shows last fall. I have no idea why record labels are so fussy about pushing back releases that are completely ready to go on their original date, and thus, I don't think a guy can be blamed for downloading the leak that surfaced somewhere near that date. Right away I knew this was something I was going to buy when the revised date of May 13 rolled around. It welded together a cryptic but emotional songwriting style with the icy cold, idiosyncratic programming of Radiohead's more exploratory phase, tempered by the more accessible but highly dramatic approach of other Radiohead-influenced bands such as Muse and Delirious?, with a solid helping of atmospheric guitar, jubilant piano, and a kickin' rhythm section. Seriously, it seemed like there was very little that this band was capable of getting wrong.

What's really surprising is that this appears to be only album #2 for these guys. Their debut, You Can't Trust a Ladder, was released rather quietly in 2005, garnering some critical acclaim, but generally only reaching a niche audience. Being on a fairly minor Christian record label will do that toy you, I suppose. That one got them off to a pretty good start, but since then, they've had the good fortune of working up a bit of pre-album buzz due to a bit of attention that they got from MTV2, and signing to Koch Records. (Yeah, I know, it's the same label that once signed William Hung, but this is about giving greater exposure to a band that already deserved it, not about the record deal in and of itself being the indicator that the band is worth listening to.) The Myriad seems poised (pun intended) to break through to a much bigger audience. Some bands don't benefit from the new toys and the lavish budget available to them in the recording studio when they make the jump to a major label. But The Myriad is the kind of band whose music is layered and detail-oriented enough to sound really good dressed up in those new clothes, and their style walks that fine line between experimentation and accessibility quite well. So there's really nothing to lose in the transition. They've made a unique, intriguing modern rock album that mixes familiar ingredients (for fans of tech-savvy rock bands, anyway) in striking ways, and without including a single dud track. Even the songs that I have minor complaints about are pretty darn good. And I'm pretty picky. Hence, this is one of the few albums that I would award a 5-star rating to without hesitation. With Arrows, with Poise have a solid shot at being my #1 pick for 2008 if it weren't for those meddling kids in Thrice.

You Waste Time Like a Grandfather Clock
Where were you a week ago when the church bells started swinging?
Where were you when they rang and angels came down?
A nice little bit of rhythmic trickery starts the album off, by way of the boom-hiss of the drums and cymbals, and an ambiguous, subtle guitar riff that cleverly masks the segue from 4/4 time to 6/8. A bit of a weird way to lead off the album, since it takes the song's hook value on a bit of a detour, but it shows this band's affinity for taking unexpected left turns that resolve into catchy choruses. The lyrics describe all manner of mystical occurrences taking place while lead singer Jeremy Edwardson is asking someone why they were M.I.A. when it was all taking place. This brings him to the cryptic refrain, "You waste time like a grandfather clock, and that's when we start counting sandbags." I have no clue what any of that means. (I even approached one of the dudes in the band after a concert this weekend to ask how exactly a grandfather clock could "waste time". He said it was more of a metaphor for sitting in a dusty, deserted old room, where the tick of the clock is the only thing that can be heard and you're just killing time. I didn't think to ask about the sandbags.) The bridge brings a bit of clarity with the pointed question: "And if God did part the clouds, do you think He'd be proud?" So apparently it's an admonition to not carelessly throw away the limited time we're given. But there are a lot of metaphors to unpack here. Drummer Scott Davis' relentless, pounding toms add just the right amount of intensity to the rhythm toward the end of the song to make sure that I keep coming back around for more listens to try and figure it all out.

Get on the Plane
Children please, don't breathe the air
Your lips are turning blue
It seems that God was not impressed
With clever crooked fools...
Track two might actually be my least favorite... and there's still a lot to like about its nervous pace, hurtling forward as if in a hurry to catch the titular airplane that is about to take off and leave someone stranded. There's a sense of foreboding and futility as the piano and the layered backing vocals call out into the night, and Jeremy seems to be trying to calm his racing pulse by reassuring himself repeatedly: "And if the sun comes up tomorrow, we'll be fine". What kind of throws a monkey wrench into the song for me is a point right smack in the middle of the song when the tempo suddenly gets dragged down to a much slower pace (think the "rain down" section of "Paranoid Android", all you Radiohead fans), during which the band repeats the eerie mantra/prophecy, "They said we'd live forever", only for that to eventually fall apart, leading us into a brief bit of dark bass bumbling around in the background, before a light-speed, warped guitar solo (which is pretty darn cool, albeit rather brief) brings us back up to the relentless pace that the song started off at. This sort of thing might have worked a little better later in the album - having two songs right upfront that change up their speed and/or time signature so noticeably kind of makes it difficult for the album to establish momentum. The band gets more assured in this area from here on out, though.

Forget What You Came For
Quit making noise, and lend an ear to the silent voice
And trust in the hope of a thousand ships crashing down on the sea...
If this grandiose, piano-driven tune sounds like the perfect song for a band to introduce themselves to the world with in concert, that's because it is. It feels so much like an intro track designed to get you sucked into a band's sound that I'm honestly surprised it didn't start off the album. It's a mid-tempo, brooding but lush, piano rock tune with a soaring electric guitar riff and a nice little acoustic break in the middle, all with the intent of painting an atmosphere of awe and reverence and urging us to chuck our limited expectations of what God can do, and prepare to be dazzled. This would be the moment where the band is most heavily reminiscent of Muse, without the vocal histrionics that sometimes get on my nerves whenever I attempt to listen to that band.

A Clean Shot
With guns ablaze, I'll bring you what you need
And with fires of rain I'll wake our blinking city up
I'll scream "My love!" as arrows fill the skies...
Catchy. As. Hell. I've always had a weak spot for dance-oriented tracks played by bona fide rock bands - there's something about that blend of rock and techno that has been alluring to me ever since I fell in love with U2's "Discotheque". With a lot of semi-indie rock bands doing their tongue-in-cheek emulations of popular styles from decades gone by these days, you're bound to encounter stuff like this on a lot of rock records, and well, this is The Myriad's take on the subgenre. The flavor's a little more disco-oriented, with ever-so-slight shades of funk in the guitar licks, and a slick 16-beat from the drums that makes it easy to envision a huge spinning mirror ball right over your head. All of this is used rather effectively to woo the listener, even if it might be an odd fit for the lyrics about bloody battles and arrows sailing through the sky and a lover crying out for the freedom of the one he loves, a la Braveheart. You wouldn't expect this to work, but gosh darn it, it's my favorite track on the album. It deftly walks the fine line between stylistic cheekiness and lyrical sincerity. And it's a hell of a good choice for a lead single, too.

The Accident
Break it down now, and make it easier on me
Because it hurts when you drag through all the pieces
Break it down now, just get to the point, you're killing me...
Here's a rocker that starts off right in your face instead of getting there by way of the band's usual smoke-and-mirrors approach. Still a very danceable rhythm here, but the guitars are cranked up much louder and there's a whole lot of drum pounding and cymbal crashing to match the pre-programmed beat. The lyrics depict the frightened reaction of a man who's basically been told that there's a bit of bad news to announce, and that he oughta sit down for this. And he can't handle how the person's dragging it out and trying to soften the blow. He demands, "Spit it out! Come on and get it all out for me! Spit it out right now!" And that's the part of the song (oddly, instead of the chorus) that is most likely to get stuck in your head.

The Holiest of Thieves
Take us now, and cut our shaking fists off at the wrist
Break us now, and burn a hole right through us with a kiss...
The band achieves excellence once again on this standout track, which has a cold, chugging, machine-like beat to it, but still manages to convey a mysterious, wide-open sort of atmosphere due to the impressionistic picture that the lyrics paint. There's some talk of mysterious beings hovering in the sky, coming down through the clouds, giving the listener an eerie image of an alien invasion, but then it's difficult to be sure whether we're supposed to want to be taken by these supernatural beings. Jeremy seems to want to resist it, and yet he seems to be in awe at how they are "the holiest of thieves". How are thieves holy? Jesus was crucified with two thieves, but only one of them became "holy", and that's just word association since nothing else in the song seems to support that metaphor. So I'm totally stumped. But wow, what an engrossing little song this is, especially when it explodes forth with yet another unforgettable refrain, with its repeated shouts of "Whoa! Hey! Stop!" I like that the song finally comes to a sudden, cold halt after the last time those commands are shouted.

A Thousand Winters Melting
The streets are filled with angels, walking by my side
And every time I listen close, I hear their footsteps quickly run and hide
It's all a bit confusing, impossible at best
But when I walk alone at night, I feel their holy presence lift my head...
A happier drum beat and some light, tinkling piano take us out of the mostly murky mood of the album and into a much more flowery musical landscape. No surprise that they made this one the Christian radio single - but that's not a criticism. This band captures both murky moods and joyful ones quite well. There's a sort of Narnia-esque metaphor to this one, where the presence of holy angels causes the curse of winter to be lifted and the surrounding world to suddenly reveal dramatic colors that were once hidden under the grey gloom. It's a sentimental song, to be sure, but it's still got a confident, guitar-driven chorus, and the combined efforts of guitarist Steven Tracy and keyboardist Jonathan Young goes a long way toward making sure that the song earns its "feel good" status instead of just throwing that mood at us to the tune of dull, everyday pop/rock music. I love the gentle piano outro, too.

Polar Bears and Shark Fins
Did you forget to read the signs?
Sharks are creeping in today
Tired of eating fish
In search of something more rewarding...
This is the first song on the album that maintains a slower tempo for its entirety - it uses the piano to help drive the beat along, while the drums keep a solid and sometimes intricate rhythm going, and the guitar gives off a ghostly wail, Sigur Ros style but more high-pitched, giving the song an icy mood. It's a song about seeing warning signs and then choosing to ignore them - or perhaps it's a song about excessive paranoia. Shoot for all I know, maybe it's a song about deadly predators native to the mysterious island on which the TV show Lost takes place. Whatever the case, it's a fascinatingly spooky little number.

Throwing Punches
Is this what you meant by love?
Crashing cars with the coolest kids
You've given me my one desire
Even though it's dangerous...
Here's where the band really goes all Kid A on us. And it's really friggin' cool. A cold, distant, thumpety-thump from the drum machine sounds like an attempt at rhythmic pointillism - just filling in little dots instead of fully coloring in the picture. Fluid piano runs through this one as well, as do a lot of echoing vocals and a super-creepy refrain in which where a synthesizer seems to be dragging and blurring Jeremy's wordless "ooh"s. It's another paranoid song that seems to be about a futile fistfight against mere shadows, and Jeremy asks bitter questions about how someone could possibly claim that their actions are loving when it looks to him like they're only trying to start these fistfights for their own sadistic amusement.

Don't Let Them See You!
The fog rolls in
And the temperature drops about 30 degrees
200 years have disappeared
And yet the pipe smoke lingers...
It's about the right time to speed up the tempo and bring back the guitars, which the band does here with a more fast-paced, edgy song depicting a nervous character running through the forest, trying to escape whatever mythical creatures are lurking amongst the trees, waiting to gobble him up. It seems to be all a bunch of mind games - the fight-or-flight response has counterintuitive results, because death awaits those who try to run, but those who turn and face the nameless monster and stare it down will emerge victorious. (Why am I thinking of Lost again?) For Coldplay fans, this one's got sort of a "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face"-type beat to it. It's a driving, edge-of-your-seat type rocker - not all that intensely heavy, but definitely not easygoing by any stretch of the imagination.

Braver than the Rest
Take a step backwards
No wait, take a step forwards
Or was it backwards?
Or was it left or right?
Sometimes I get this one mixed up with "Don't Let Them See You!" because the two are both guitar-driven tracks near the end of the album, and they have a similar feel, with both guitarists doing a lot of angular riffing and the overall feeling that one misstep will result in certain doom. That seems to be the fear of the paralyzed individual in this song - he doesn't know which way to turn, and he seems to fear that God/fate/whatever you want to call it will simply abandon him if he makes one small movement that falls outside of the grand plan. There's something monochromatic about this song's melody that kind of bugs me sometimes, but the little drum-and-bass breakdown in the middle of the song if pretty darn cool - it's like a guy doing a jittery, nervous dance to avoid being riddled with bullets.

Stuck in a Glass Elevator
And in the end, the glass will crumble
In the end, it will burst and break...
Hmmm, now my mind has gone off to a different fantasy world - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory instead of Lost. You know that final scene where Willy Wonka takes Charlie "up and out"? That's what crosses my mind when the techno-geek thumping and warm keyboard tones open this song up on an irregular rhythm of 7/8. There's plenty of synthesized specters haunting this song, and you can hear the uneasiness as the magical elevator twists and turns its way around corners on its convoluted route to the sky. Midway through, a few scattered shards of electric guitar add to the tension, the piano chords begin to build in intensity, and suddenly, the song breaks out into the open sky, and live drums and piano and guitar all join in for a celebratory flight into outer space. "Let's get out, let's get out of this place!" Jeremy excitedly sings, his glee over this final escape becoming the last thing heard on the album before the song suddenly falls away on a tense, unresolved note. Not exactly the most iconic way to end a rock album, but then, mysterious ideas that make you wonder what they were thinking seem to be the way that this band prefers to communicate.

Well, if I haven't given you a myriad of reasons (groan, sorry) to hear With Arrows, With Poise for yourself by now, then I'm not sure what else I can say. It's one of less than ten albums that I've been willing to give the rare five-star rating to in the last few years. (Rounding up, anyway.) Intelligent modern rock music simply doesn't get much better than this.

ALBUM WORTH:
You Waste Time Like a Grandfather Clock $1.50
Get on the Plane $1
Forget What You Came For $1.50
A Clean Shot $2
The Accident $1.50
The Holiest of Thieves $2
A Thousand Winters Melting $2
Polar Bears and Shark Fins $1.50
Throwing Punches $2
Don't Let Them See You! $1.50
Braver than the Rest $1
Stuck in a Glass Elevator $1.50
TOTAL: $19

Band Members:
Jeremy Edwardson: Lead vocals, guitar
Jonathan Young: Guitar, keyboards
Steven Tracy: Guitar
John Schofield: Bass guitar
Scott Davis: Drums

Websites:
http://www.themyriad.net
http://www.myspace.com/themyriad

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving