SWORDS METROPOLIS Arena Rock Recording Co.

This sextet from Portland, Oregon, formed in 1999 and released one EP and one full-length as the Swords Project. Now, like their newly truncated name, their mix of pursed guitar and plaintive vocals comes across more as a concise statement. Lyrics of disconnection and dissatisfaction are cast in gray and tocsin guitars bleed more hum than humdrum. But some of the project’s formerly muffled sprawl has been vulcanized for a sound more steely and fibrous. Which is not to say there isn’t reverb and DSP digitalis, only that Swords deploy fewer obscuring sonic shrouds. It’s a style that splits the difference between R.E.M. and Mogwai — a thoughtful yet caustic synergy that’s given the former "project" more of a band identity.