Friday 01/10/04 Hope of the States, Inouk @ Double Door, Chicago

What is “Inouk”? Is it:
a).  The protagonist of the latest 390-minute film featuring Eskimos crossing treacherous plateaus of ice on foot.
b).  Inuit for ‘how many vowels can I put in one word and still defeat Pelle Almqvist when he uses his own surname during Scrabble battles”.
c).  A Radiohead-indebted quartet out of Philadelphia whose Buckleysims run so deep they bleed the Mississippi River.

If you answered C, treat yourself to their album, 'No Danger'.  Don’t be put off by the comparisons, though; this band is no Starsailor.  Still, those influences are hard to shake.  Support guitarist Ian Fengler is without a microphone but his white V-neck T-shirt speaks volumes to those familiar with the cover art to Buckley’s 'Live at Sin-e'.  Convivial bassist Jesse Johnson is such a twin of Phil Selway that you expect to see him drop the bass at any moment to shove drummer Glen Brasile, himself the spitting image of one Andrew WK, out of the way before Brasile manages to produce a hitherto concealed Kelly Osbourne from the confines of the kick drum for a rousing duet of 'She Is Beautiful'.  Fortunately, Inouk sounds nothing like our classically trained pianist in the dirty white jeans.  The three-part harmonies on the sublime 'Elected' recall Chicago’s own 90 Day Men.  The song itself sounds like the death knell for the inevitable progression of incompetent politicians.  Woozy and weary, this dirge is the sound of the morning after-hangover, once the final votes have been negated to modify the outcome.  'Somewhere in France' unfolds with all the nuance of a Bertolucci film condensed into three minutes, setting the scene for the cinematic headliners

Available only on import and carrying a twenty-eight dollar price tag, the chief means of familiarizing oneself with 'The Lost Riots', short of incurring the Wrath of Lars and illegally downloading the tracks, was to whittle away the hours of an underwhelming weekend, wearing headphones in the listening station of Tower Records.  Here’s a band so keen to ape the Radiohead legacy that, in the tradition of 'Hail to the Theif', not only have they gone ahead and created dual titles for each track, but they’ve also given the discerning music consumer the option of purchasing either the standard packaging or the deluxe, special edition, manifold gatefold tactile road map scratch n’ sniff version.  On their first album, mind.  No Pablo Honey wading pool for this lot.

A debut this ambitious seems destined to fall flat, but HOTS live up to their majestic aims.  Set-opener 'The Black Amnesias' levels expectations, raises pulses, prods the imminent eruption of Mount St. Helens, triggering in its own right a knock-on effect of earthquakes up and down the California coast, tremors forceful enough to throw Governor Schwarzenegger off his Soloflex.  Once the song is finished, the west coast states may as well have sunk into the Pacific.  The subversive effect of songs titled '1776' and 'George Washington' takes on new meaning when performed on American soil.  The bulk of tonight’s attendees, unfamiliar with the HOTS ethos, don’t know what to make of a band of Brits performing songs in front of a sheet, upon which is projected archival footage of Independence Day parades across small town America.  It’s fair to say a few knobheads even start to feel a surge of patriotism, misinterpreting the meaning, much like most of the civilized world couldn’t hear past the beat with Blur’s 'Girls and Boys' and 'Parklife'. The desperate opening measures to 'Black Dollar Bills' should be piped through every office in Congress.

'Enemies/Friends' punctuates a potent set, its sentiment echoing the sound advice of Morrissey, who, before he decided to model Tommy guns, encouraged us all to hold on to our friends.  Just to show that HOTS don’t hate all Americans, Sam Herlihy, at two separate occasions during tonight’s performance, offers us an alternative platform for America’s next executives.  “Tom Waits and Jeff Tweedy for President,” he says, to a rousing response.  When HOTS play Detroit, the presidential ticket probably changes to involve either Jack White or Iggy Pop, but here in the hometown of Mr. Wilco, it goes down a storm.  Just be sure to make room on your cabinet for Herlihy and the rest of Hope of the States, President Waits.