Past Lives: Always a challenge

Local band Past Lives sounds exactly like it wants to, which is completely unlike anything else. Its debut release, the "Strange Symmetry" EP (available online now, in stores Nov. 4), is five distinct art-rock songs and one ominous tone.

The band plays Sunday at Neumo's, opening for the Dead Science.

The standout track on "Strange Symmetry" is "Reverse the Curse." Its startlingly confrontational 2 ½ minutes are concise, abstract and unique — the best example of Past Lives' utterly brain-breaking sound.

In the song, singer Jordan Blilie sounds depraved, bellowing, "Oh, well ... What can you do?" with a guttural edge. It's scary. The undanceable drums (by Mark Gajadhar) are an ogre stomping through mud. Two bass notes plod from a keyboard, as reverb-soaked electric guitar arpeggios hacksaw upward, repeating with idiot logic.

"It's got a sinister and menacing vibe," said Devin Welch of his guitar part, talking on the phone from L.A., where the band played a music festival last weekend. "Because it's grating, it connects with the vibe of the song. It makes a lot of sense with the singing too, the attitude of the singing."

Sinister, menacing, grating: That's a lot of what Past Lives is all about. But "Reverse the Curse" doesn't hammer its mutant war march ad nauseam. There's a breaking point at the minute-40 mark when Gajadhar's drums and Welch's guitar introduce a triumphant, but no less sinister-sounding, refrain. Past Lives hoists it like a flag, and from the top of Mount Strange, surveys the damage done. Then it blasts into a white-knuckle speed section, repeats the original progression and stops.

"The second section, I thought it would be right to put something with swagger to go against the bratty first part," said Welch. "Then the freakout section ... I don't know where that stuff came from. That's a pretty weird song."

Said keyboard player and bassist Morgan Henderson: "It's really hard to pin down what kind of song it is. Like, the White Stripes? Those are blues songs, but amped up. With 'Reverse the Curse,' I have a hard time explaining what it is."

Novelty is part of Past Lives' appeal; the same went for the band that birthed it, the Blood Brothers. Welch left Blood Brothers in 1997, but Blilie, Henderson and Gajadhar stayed in the band for 10 years and five albums, going from playing the Old Fire House Teen Center in Redmond to world tours. The screamy band's best songs were thrash and violence; by sheer force and amount of ideas, they ended up in their own hard, weird place. Past Lives purposefully don't revisit Blood Brothers' more-is-more style.

Indeed, one of the best parts of the EP is when the band backs off and just rides a groove on the first half of "Chrome Life." Gajadhar, who's one of Seattle's best drummers, does superfast rim shots while Welch rhythmically bends strings and messes with feedback.

"We have new songs that don't explode. Which is what Blood Brothers did a lot," said Henderson. " 'Chrome Life' is an example of us trying to let parts breathe a little more, have a little more time to enjoy playing them and listening to them." Henderson said it's a challenge. "I've always had pretty serious ADD."

Welch said, "I try deliberately not to fall into obvious ruts or do any really obvious rock moves, 'cause that stuff gets really boring to me. There's no reason to do the tried and true." He chalked up his guitar style to "equal parts taste and technical limitation," and explained his contributions to songs in terms of mood.

Henderson was more technical. The "bassist" makes bass sounds on keyboards and with a guitar. "I realized I had to run a guitar through a bass amp and then a guitar amp to get what I was looking for. You can split effects that way. Reverb on one, dry on another," he said. Henderson's a sound architect, posting sketches on www.morganhenderson.com (marimba and water drops; a flock of honking clarinets) and scoring modern dance pieces at On the Boards with Seattle choreographer Zoe Scofield.

"You realize you've set up boundaries for yourself," he said. "That's the great thing about this band: It makes me think about what's become easy to do and what I've become comfortable with."

Andrew Matson: 206-464-2153

or amatson@seattletimes.com