Gimme indie rock Bright Eyes, Lou Barlow, and the return of the underground BY MATT ASHARE

I still remember back in the mid ’90s when Archers of Loaf frontman Eric Bachmann lamented, "The underground is overcrowded." He was right: we’d gone straight from alternative nation to indie-rock heaven, which was actually a nightmare when labels like Matador started selling off their futures to the majors, and everyone and his or her cousin had a homemade, lo-fi CD you just had to hear. A little housecleaning was in order — hell, Bachmann even euthanized the Archers, presumably to open up some breathing space in the overcrowded underground. Then again, maybe it was just time . . .

So here we are, a decade later, regularly dealing with Duffs and Simpsons who are only distantly related to Homer and Marge, finding ourselves under siege from reality-television shows that continue to erode whatever legitimacy celebrity still has in the good ol’ US, and, sure enough, indie rock is making a resurgence. Yeah, there are those who will say it never really went away. And that’s sort of true. But when bands like Slint — the influential Louisville, Kentucky, group who dropped a couple of discs in the early ’90s before going on to lend members to a veritable cottage industry of Midwestern indie-rock enterprises — decide it’s time for a reunion tour, you can be sure they’ve got more than the Pixies on their collective mind. I wouldn’t want to call it a movement, or anything as easy to pin down as that. But when you compare the anemic major-label release schedules for January, February, and March with the plethora of highly anticipated indie releases, you gotta figure something’s going on.

Perhaps the most eagerly awaited pair of releases due this January belong to one rather mercurial man-child from the Midwest named Conor Oberst and a project/band he calls Bright Eyes. He and his rotating cast of backing players have been making a lot of noise over the past couple of years, sowing the seeds for a mainstream breakthrough of some sort with appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman, a high-profile gig at the 2003 MTV2-sponsored Shortlist Awards, and a pre-election tour opening for the likes of R.E.M. and Bruce Springsteen. Bright Eyes still aren’t a household name, but Oberst is the definitely the biggest thing to happen to indie-rock songwriting since Stephin Merritt was anointed a genius for his 69 Love Songs (Merge) a couple of years ago. And on January 25, after a year that’s seen him produce the indie-folk band Tilly and the Wall and start his own record label (Team Love), as well as create a base for himself in NYC, Oberst is set to release two very different Bright Eyes albums that already have begun to cause a stir online, as more and more songs become available as downloads. The first of the two albums, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning (Saddle Creek), may be a step up in terms of production (and special guests) from his early recordings, but it basically sticks to the same roots-tinged, singer-songwriter terrain as Oberst’s past releases: acoustic-guitar-based songs with a confessional bent and, in this case, guest vocals by Emmylou Harris and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James. The second, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn (Saddle Creek), is more of a departure in the realm of neo-new wave, featuring among others Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But both albums are littered with cameos by FOCs (Friends of Conor), including Jesse Harris and Jason Boesel of former labelmates Rilo Kiley, Matt Maginn of Cursive, Maria Taylor of Azure Ray, Clark Baechle of the Faint (who are rumored to be the back-up band he has in mind for a tour supporting Digital Ash), Jake Bellows of Neva Dinova, and Jimmy Tamborello of the Postal Service. Yeah, it’s a who’s who of who’s who in indie-rock, with a few major omissions. But some indie artists had their own albums to make.

On January 11, Bobby Wratten and his aptly named British outfit Trembling Blue Stars deliver Seven Autumn Flowers on Bar/None after enduring a rocky relationship with Sub Pop. This is the same album that came out in Europe last year, but the US version has four bonus tracks that were previously available only as hard-to-find B-sides. Wratten’s introspective songwriting and toned-down arrangements are very much in keeping with the Bright Eyes aesthetic, so if you can’t wait until the 25th, this disc should hold you over. Sub Pop may have lost Trembling Blue Stars, but it’s now got the gently introspective Low as part of its roster, and January 25 will mark the release of The Great Destroyer, the band’s seventh album and one that promises to have a more aggressive guitar sound then their past work. Fountains of Wayne fans should by now be aware that one of that Grammy-nominated band’s primary songwriters, bassist Adam Schlesinger, also happens to play in the criminally underappreciated NYC trio Ivy, who, though they once sounded like an American answer to the Cardigans, have left the lounge behind for a more continental indie-pop sound, thanks to the alluring vocals of French-expatriate singer Dominique Durand. They’ve already got a CD called In the Clear in the can and a deal inked with Nettwerk: originally it was set for a February 1 release but it’s now been pushed back to March. Meanwhile, the psychedelically inclined Mercury Rev are gearing up to release their new Secret Migration on the mini-major V2 on January 25.

Like Mercury Rev, there are always plenty of artists walking the line between playing what most would consider indie rock while releasing albums on a major label. Nothing wrong with that, as long as nobody loses an eye or anything. Ambrosia Parsley (yes, that’s really her name) went that route in 1999 with her band Shivaree, signing with Capitol and releasing an album of avant-tinged rootsy music that had no business being on a major label. Predictably, I Oughta Give You a Shot in the Head for Making Me Live in This Dump went nowhere, and Parsley had to sit by and watch her follow-up get buried in the Capitol vaults. Well, she and Shivaree have finally extricated themselves from the Capitol deal and signed with Rounder’s Zoë label, which released an EP last year and is gearing up for the release of a long-awaited Shivaree full-length on January 11. It’s called Who’s Got Trouble? and it’s worth the wait. Another avant-leaning band who have been walking the indie/major tightrope are . . . And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Apparently, their first Interscope release did well enough that the label has them on the schedule to release a new CD, Worlds Apart, on January 25. And rootsy upstarts Kings of Leon are currently scheduled to drop their sophomore album, which was produced by Ethan Johns of Ryan Adams and Counting Crows fame, on RCA on January 31. It’s called A-Ha Shake Heartbreak. And, leave it to former Sebadoh frontman Lou Barlow to take an amusing shot at the latest (growing old fast) indie-punk rage with the title of his first solo album for Merge. Yep, it’s called Emoh, and it’s due on January 25.

Epitaph’s Anti- label has once again pulled off a minor coup by licensing the new Marianne Faithfull album, Before the Poison, for release in the US on January 31. Now, this isn’t just another Marianne Faithfull album: it’s a disc on which a former generation’s queen of darkness collaborates with our generation’s queen of darkness (namely, Polly Jean Harvey), and also gets a little help from an Anti- labelmate of late, Nick Cave. Actually, Harvey wrote, played on, and produced more than half the album, so you could call it a collaboration. And it’s hard to imagine that not being a very good thing for Faithfull. A week earlier, on January 25, we’ll get to hear what it sounds like when the notoriously independent Ani Difranco teams up with singer/songwriter Joe Henry, who produced and collaborated with Difranco on her new Knuckle Down on her own Righteous Babe label.

Of course, there are plenty of major-label artists gearing up to release albums in the first quarter of 2005. And you’ll no doubt be inundated with all kinds of promotions for each and every one of them, as the big labels try to figure out how to survive on their ever-shrinking piece of the infotainment pie. I won’t go into details, but you can look forward to new music from the Chemical Brothers, Kenny Chesney, and Fat Joe on January 25; Black Eyed Peas, Seal, and Staind on February 1; and Beck, 50 Cent, and a solo Rob Thomas on February 15.