Beautiful Things and a Little Pain

FRONTLINE ASSEMBLY
Epitaph (Metropolis)

Comfortable anger. Played quiet, Epitaph is like rain on the roof; when you're rattling the casements with the monster bass, it's like an air mattress. Luxury accessories abound: fun sequencer arpeggios; tastefully integrated breakbeats; edits that jar without derailing the main feel. Frontline wants sensual bigness rather than punchy rawness this time. Drumbeats en masse, okay, but the duo are leaning toward melody, both keyboardian and vocal. Founder Bill Leeb spreads his hostile stage whisper throughout the record; the intimacy feels good without necessarily making you like him.

Is Leeb a pop guy since he sorta scored with the mushy Delerium project last year? He has always half-suspected he was one; he just doesn't sound like he wants to be popular. But he's making music, so he must. There's also some really good noise here; could be partner Chris Peterson's influence. Nice cornball touches crop up; '80s urban-soul Drumdrop gimmicks and such mitigate the pervasive whiteness with a distant hint of funk. Vancouver was the correct destination for Leeb after he left Skinny Puppy way back when: gray, with coffee battling ganja and heroin for the urban psyche, an explosively growing place where there's no such thing as normal.

Epitaph? Obviously Leeb ain't going away; he has a million projects and will be recording long after he's dead. Frontline, though, remains his most artistic expression. Let's keep it.

You could put Epitaph on most anytime, really, and see smoke where there isn't any smoke. Waxy guys in basements can be so powerful. (Greg Burk)

DNTEL
Life Is Full of Possibilities (Plug Research)

Dntel's music sounds like a dance club heard from the inside of an art student's scratchy womb. Melodic, all-embracing, heartbeaty — yes! — but also prickly in a soft and squishy way. Change the term ambient to ambiotic, and we got us a new genre of music here.

Dntel is Jimmy Tamborello, current member of L.A. indie/rock/emo bands Figurine and Strictly Ballroom, former member of the KXLU DJ mafia. He makes electronic music with "organic" touches — skipped beats, analog static, short low hums . . . Cramps? Morning sickness? Well, no, but the drums are like dull thumps on the belly rather than clicks on an 808, and the acoustic guitar is rich in a chocolate-fudge-cake-indulgence kind of way. As any ambiotic musician should, Dntel suspends you in prettiness. At times too much. The melodies spend as much time holding you in place and traveling to and fro as they do growing up into songs.

Life Is Full of Possibilities features individual tracks with vocals from Mia Doi Todd, Chris Gunst (Beachwood Sparks, ex–Strictly Ballroom), Rachel Haden (ex–That Dog), Meredith Figurine (Figurine) and Benjamin Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie), as well as guitar from Brian McMahon (the For Carnation, ex-Slint) and Paul Larson (Athalia, Strictly Ballroom). Yes, it's L.A. scenester time, though only Todd's and McMahon's contributions are particularly notable.