Untuned and Decompressed

Paper Rival ride the fence between user-friendly radio rock and ’90s underground throwbacks when the two camps seem to be at a philosophical impasse. Opting for a low-budget, unkempt recording for their debut LP Dialog, the Nashville four-piece leave the album vulnerable to off-color chord slips and voice cracks that would appease any indie purist. Yet, for as much as lead singer Jake Rolleston’s vocals flirt with the unearthed aggression that defined Jawbox, and the band’s gritty melodies skim the more palatable side of D.C.’s post-hardcore scene, Paper Rival wear their alternative trappings proudly on their sleeve. Their sympathy for cookie-cutter mainstream rock and its pop charms keep them far from the fringes and, as their few short years have shown, all the more relevant.

Spun from the leftovers of two Tennessee buddy bands in 2005, Paper Rival originally dubbed themselves Keating, and quickly assembled their debut EP Thieves—an uncomfortable blend of surplus material from their former bands—to attract booking agents. One gig in Edmonton, Alberta, however, saw fans show to hear a grrrl rock outfit of the same name, resulting in a cease-and-desist order and a change to their current moniker. As relentless touring helped them ripen their own sound, they pulled together a five-track self-titled EP, released last year, which showcased Paper Rival’s newly discovered ethos. In that same vein, Dialog sees Paper Rival settled with a more sure aesthetic. Firmly grounded in head-bobbing, digestible pop structures, the album still refuses to rush to the almighty hook and, unlike so many faux metal bands that sprint to the chorus within the first 30 seconds, all of Dialog’s 11 tracks relish in tangents that preserve its organic, scruffy edge.

“It was a conscious decision that we separate ourselves from the tuned and compressed records of that genre,” says Rolleston. “We actually had a huge budget [to record Dialog] and we came in way under. We want to sound like we’re a band comfortable in our own skin, like it’s coming straight out of the amp and into your ears.”

Though grateful for their Nashville roots, Rolleston doesn’t at all waffle about whether or not Paper Rival will stick it out in the South. For a band so indebted to their live following, reception has always been much stronger in West Coast venues, rather than the handful of shows actually in Nashville clubs like 12th & Porter. Despite their willingness to re-establish their roots in a more commercially viable scene elsewhere, Tennessee is very much imbedded in Dialog’s framework, for better or worse. “Cassandra” pops off with a bare acoustic strum and lazy fiddle melody parroting Deep South country rock, and “Keep Us In” was written in response to the state’s approved 2006 ballot to ban same-sex marriage.

“I just felt incredibly embarrassed to be from the South after that,” Rolleston says.

Perhaps a tad secondhand, Dialog is hardly a two-tone record, as the band fluently transposes its alt-rock regalia into something surprisingly authentic. Take “Bluebird,” which slinks through its first two-and-a-half minutes with emo-inflected vocals and subdued, moody guitar brushes from guitarist Brent Coleman, only to bristle into sunny Cali-rock for its remainder before imploding with an alternating bent-chord freak-out in its final moments. Or consider “The Kettle Black” near album’s end, which hovers between early Conor Oberst tape recordings and lyrics reminiscent of Pedro the Lion’s bitter heartbreak. That’s followed by closer “Weak Sister,” an obvious salute to Death Cab for Cutie that abandons all its outsider tags for a straight-up crowd-pleaser with heavy-handed drums from Patrick Damphier and a languid bass line from Cody McCall.

Regardless of all their unabashed influence, though, Paper Rival remain raw and honest. For now, that will likely mean playing to a small but sturdy crowd of 300 rather than hand-feeding radio hits to 1,000 half-fans. And they say all the better for it.