Yet this album should not be reduced to its familiarity to Dartmouth students. To do so would minimize the fact that "The Nerve" is an impressive accomplishment in songwriting an interesting twist on classic rock and folk that is engaging and catchy.
"The Nerve" is, in some respects, a departure from Filligar's previous work, as the band made a more concerted effort to emulate classic rock, according to lead vocalist and guitarist Johnny Mathias.
"I think for this album, we consciously made it more of a rock album than in the past," he said. "I think we have hints of the newest album in our previous albums."
Last fall, the band also had opportunities to play the songs on tour before completing the album, giving them a chance to work out any kinks. After touring, the band wrote the remainder of the album in two stages first writing songs in New Hampshire this past winter, then moving between Madison, Wis., and Chicago, Ill.
The album's strength lies in its structure, created by shifts in mood caused by variations in pace and style. The album starts off with five very approachable tracks. After the fifth track "Gray Area," the album's best cut the band abruptly changes directions with "La Revanche." A short, toned-down piece of piano music without lyrics, the song gives listeners a chance to digest the preceding 24 minutes.
"Architect" and "Early Riser" follow, with slower and sparser compositions that ease the album into "Mumbling Girl," a much faster, twangy, guitar-driven song. The album continues to shift pace and volume with tracks such as the energetic "Wild Nature." The penultimate track, "New & Old," is another change of pace. The song begins with a harmonica intro and Johnny Mathias channeling his inner Tweedy, whispering the lyrics at first.
The prominence of Johnny Mathias' guitar and Gibson's Rhodes keyboard or B3 organ shifts from song to song as well. Gibson takes over on songs like "La Revanche" and "Not Gonna Settle," as Mathias' acoustic guitar picking sets the mood on tracks like "Early Riser" and "Wild Nature."
There are also moments when piano and guitar intermingle more evenly, such as on "Resurrection Song," when Gibson's piano playing, reminiscent of the piano on Wilco's "Hummingbird," coexists with Mathias' guitar. Such moments are made all the more exciting due to the give and take between the two on other parts of the album.
The contrasts between songs can be a bit disorienting at times, but they ultimately create an interesting symmetry that rewards those who still choose listen to the album the whole way through a practice that has fallen by the wayside in the age of iTunes.
Many of the songs deal with lost love, troubled love or defiance in the face of heartbreak. Although four out of the first five songs seem to talk about nothing outside of these topics, Filligar thankfully does not fall into the trap of beating the theme to death. More complicated and obscure themes and imagery stand out in the songwriting for tracks such as "Architect," which includes the lyrics, "Hey architect dream up your pictures of architecture/and don't you worry about a thing."
The real strength in the lyrics is the way they are sung, rendering some of the songs on the album immediately catchy. The dragged out notes in "Gray Area" for the line "I'm not sure whe-ther" and in "Wild Nature" for the lines "I was just a-leaving" and "Have you e-ver held my hand" make these songs fun to sing along to and give them a certain folksy character.
Filligar spent 60 days this summer touring in support of the new album, performing about 35 shows along the way, including opening acts for Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights and Ben Folds.
Filligar is currently on hiatus from touring, as Pete Mathias is studying abroad and Teddy Mathias and Gibson are on the West Coast, but the band has two shows scheduled on the East Coast this December. Filligar will be playing in Boston at the Middle East Downstairs on Dec. 16 and at Pianos in New York City on Dec. 18.
