Plagiarists: Literal Scene

Plagiarism, or "borrowing" as it's known in popular music, has a sordid relationship with indie tastemakers who have created a culture of negativity around the tradition. Plagiarism still thrives in indie rock, of course, but a band that calls itself Plagiarists and releases albums of earnest, seemingly straightforward guitar-and-synth rock risks beheading. But that's where Plagiarists can fool you.

On their sophomore release, Literal Scene, Plagiarists quote so many sources in such effective ways that, by the time the snarling guitar rush of "Your Favorite Voices" seizes you by the eardrums, it becomes startlingly clear that a new voice is being created.

It's the nuances that lift this album. Songs like "Something's Missing" and "Church" have melodies that stick to your ribs, soaring high with Davis Wille's atmospheric guitars and Mike Witte's compelling basslines, while Blake Wergeland's busy drum kit leads the charge with skilled salvos on opener "Full Grown" leading into "Dress Rehearsals in Cold Rooms." Lush guitar arrangements propel most melodies, but sometimes Witte's bass or Brendan Golle's synth unexpectedly shift into the melody—the latter's glockenspiel putting a finer touch on many songs (see "Church").

The band claim that the inspiration for this album comes from living on the wide-open prairie. Guitars and synthesizers render this a curious claim, but lead singer and songwriter Eric Wilson's lyrics remain abstract enough to blend with the electric tones ("Colored lights can rarely hypnotize/With their blinking patterns, red and blue") and electric enough to illuminate the reality of rural youth ("Light the lamps around your head/Wear your makeup in the light/Make yourself into someone with whom/I'd like to dance tonight"). Lovers quarrel as usual, but here they're wasted kids in small-town dance halls who trade vitriolic barbs and talk of sailing away with each other. It's all a prairie night's dream that culminates in the epiphany of "Wooden Horses," where Wilson imagines "All the pretty girls with their pretty little voices/Sitting with the boys on their little wooden horses."

Where Plagiarists surprisingly bold debut album, Veto!, sounded like the admirable garage work of students, Literal Scene feels like the riskier graduate thesis of an older, bolder, jaded, but still hopeful group of lads trading youth for young manhood. That reference to Kings of Leon is not idle, either. This, too, is the sound of a band growing up on record.