Early in the pages of X Saves the World, a self-proclaimed “manifesto for a generation that’s never had much use for manifestos,” author Jeff Gordinier maintains that a vacuous artistic trend gradually emerged towards the end of the ’80s and suppurated for some years after, making for a rather exasperating lull in the history of compelling pop music. Then, of course, along came Nirvana.
But roughly half a decade later, the musical landscape had more or less reverted to lolling in the same stagnant mire that Nirvana penetrated. Airwaves were congested with more dime-a-dozen bands rigidly complying with the same checkpoints constituting whatever “alternative” was (when alternative was never intended to serve as the designation of a genre anyway). In the midst of this commercial fluffiness, while just about every other ostensible artist was attempting to huff the last hackneyed fumes from Kurt Cobain’s rotting brainchild, one particular band emerged that -- in conjunction with Gordinier’s projection of the Generation Xer ideology -- didn’t care too much for the manifesto of the mid-’90s.
Granted, to suggest that Chavez “emerged” may be a bit of an overstatement. No one ever lauded them as the voice of a generation. In fact, not too many people really noticed them at all. Chavez just occupied this little pocket of otherwise frustratingly pedestrian musical output. And even now, due in part to Matador Records releasing the comprehensive 2006 compilation Better Days Will Haunt You, a general appreciation has only begun to bubble.
Listening to Gone Glimmering, both their first and penultimate album, it's easy to fathom why Chavez is perpetually overlooked. It epitomizes a deliberate opposition to the period's prevailing monotony, which left more conformist bands to remain as staples of adult contemporary radio stations across America. When everybody else was mass-producing innocuous drab, Chavez was primarily concerned with shredding.
On the occasion that Chavez does serve as a topic of conversation, the “math rock” stamp is inevitably drawn upon. While not necessarily an inaccuracy, the label is more titular than authoritative. Math rock in relation to Chavez is problematic because the term calls to mind a snapping, ticking, pulsating preciseness à la the Dillinger Escape Plan or Battles. And while Gone Glimmering is certainly skintight, it’s driven wholly by guitar, retaining the angularity inherent to the genre yet possessing a sweeping, billowy aura as well. That is, if last year’s Mirrored was a calculated foray into regularity and prime numbers, Chavez’s math rock is a study in geometry.
Popular songs have always been constructed using transitions between verse, chorus, and the occasional bridge. Gone Glimmering’s inattentiveness to this blueprint, instead opting for a more explosive across-the-board approach, is the most obvious and enthralling aspect of the album. Even in some of the quieter moments, like the opening to “The Ghost By the Sea,” there's still a jaggedness courtesy of rippling, icy guitar arpeggios and Matt Sweeney’s corrosive, suppressed voice. Each subtlety (used in the loosest sense of the term) manages to surge into that territory where Chavez thrives.
And thrive they do, particularly on the guitar. The one-two pummel of “Nailed to the Blank Spot” and “Break Up Your Band,” though not ideologically different from the other seven tracks on the record, leaves one hard-pressed to think of another album that opens with such a masterful duality of sheer vigor and accessibility. Throughout these songs, frenetic, isolated squeals trade smacks with sawtoothed bursts of full chords, all while piggybacking on “The” James Lo’s (as he is credited in the liner notes) clamorously popping drums.
Aside from the unmitigated capacity to coerce such rawness and appeal out of their instruments, the boys also seem keenly aware of where they're going. Gone Glimmering could have easily tumbled into that overworked tactic of melodramatic buildups and soaring crescendos that so many other bands of the time were riding. But Chavez tautened the harness when veering too close to what the alternative juggernaut would have ordained. After an uncharacteristic escalation in “Wakeman’s Air,” for example, they opt to fizzle out, only to blast back into typical Chavez mode after a moment or two. These instances occur few and far between on Gone Glimmering, as it bares quite an edge from beginning to end, but they prove further witness to the precociousness of an unconventional band accomplishing something altogether unprecedented on their first record.
Finally, with closer “Relaxed Fit,” Chavez chooses not to linger. Almost as if to supplement the brunt of the preceding eight tracks’ collective sucker punch, Gone Glimmering is over as fast as it began. No self-congratulatory anthem. No token schmaltzy, emotionally wrought ballad to contrast with the rest of the record. It’s an in-and-out affair. And in this way, Gone Glimmering manages to continually resonate, despite the relatively unrecognized status it has held since its 1995 release. Its shirking of the mainstream nondescript serves as a refreshing glimpse back at a time dominated by formulaic rock, while the intrinsic merits of the album render it a pure thrill.
