Boundary-pushing Devo returns with 2 Seattle shows

Is "devolution" synonymous with "career resurrection"?

Apparently so in the case of Devo, the new-wave combo that hit it big in 1978 after pushing pop-music and music-video boundaries for half a decade from the band's home base in Akron, Ohio.

Devo has just signed again with Warner Bros. Records, its label during the 1970s-1980s heyday. The band also is working on a new album, due out next year. But the first step of the comeback starts this month, with reissues and concert performances of Devo's Warner Bros. debut, "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo" and "Freedom of Choice" (which spawned the 1980 Top-40 hit, "Whip It").

The remastered "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo" comes with new live versions of every album track, recorded earlier this year at the London Forum. The remastered "Freedom of Choice" also comes with six live bonus tracks.

"Choice" is especially worth revisiting, since it shows a little personal/romantic angst creeping into Devo's futuristic techno-pop nightmare. Consider a gem like "Snowball" where, over a lilting melody, the start-up/start-over progress of a love affair is tricked out with wistful harmonies and lyrics that are both plaintive and cunningly simple: "Lips were made for kissing, / Legs were meant for walking, / Tracks were made to follow — / That's what I'm going to do!"

Surely there's some slinky jazz singer out there who could shed new light on this and other chestnuts from the Devo songbook.

In the meantime you can hear the band itself play the two albums in their entirety tonight ("Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!") and Monday ("Freedom of Choice") at the Moore Theatre in Seattle.

Michael Upchurch: mupchurch@seattletimes.com