5 out of 5

Label: 54º40′ Or Fight! ‎

Produced by: Pat Kenneally

Yeah, this is the one.

31knots’ Rehearsal Dinner – the first recordings of the group I heard – was awesome, but sort of slotted in with their then-label’s (54-40 or Fight!) output of indie/math rock stuff, as well as concluding on a particularly yelly note, so I just sort of classified it as post-Fugazi fare, excellent as it was. Joe Haege’s lyrics stuck to mostly metaphor; the group’s ‘sound’ was definable. A Word is Also a Picture of a Word stepped up on every front. While I’m not a Delillo fan, the literary reference of the album title is a good one, and the propaganda-ish look of the cover spoke to intent.

A full-on prog intro – Preface – lets us know that the band has moved past solely being tagged as math rock, and what follows holds them to that, from start to finish. 31Knots are now transformed: Haege flitting between intensity and sweetness as needed, his words twisted into brilliant language manipulations; his metaphors from Rehearsal Dinner are sharpened, casting the world as enemies, as provocateurs, or casting us all in the same boat, sniping everyone around us with words and feelings.  Joe Kelly – made one of my favorite drummers of all time from this album and the next – communicates incredible range and restraint (an element that I think is missing when Jay Pellici takes over drumming later in the group’s career); the rather mushy recording style proves to be perfect for some reason, the way it crowds all of the noise together making it surge with emotion, perhaps (in a good way) preventing all of the prog and math elements sprinkled about from overtaking and being wankery.

It is a perfect album; brilliance and precision enacted by all of the players. While I have my standout tracks – Frozen Found Fire combines the profane with the poetic; Era of Artillery takes a marching drum roll and turns it into something somehow both uplifting and tragic – it’s an album that I cannot imagine having any single moment taken away without it affecting the power of the whole package. 31Knots defined a sound for themselves here, and maybe – maybe – they never quite did it as well again, but neither has anyone else.