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Scott McLennan
smclennan@telegram.com

Entertainment Columnist
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"The music we’re doing is not just ‘let’s dance.’ It’s stylish, but a bit more high-brow than that." - Alex Ebert

The music we’re doing is not just ‘let’s dance.’ It’s stylish, but a bit more high-brow than that.

Right now, Beck and Flaming Lips have a lock on being rock’s reigning forward-thinking eclectics. But with a little luck, Ima Robot could easily crash that party.

The Los Angeles quartet actually for a while had two members of Beck’s band in its lineup, but they have since returned to the better-paying gig. Yet Ima Robot’s new “Monument to the Masses” sounds like more fun than Beck’s latest.

“Monument to the Masses” is Ima Robot’s second release for Virgin Records and it brings better focus to the band’s heady mishmash of punk, glam, techno and hip-hop. Singer Alex Ebert, sounding like Johnny Rotten or Jello Biafra sent to finishing school, stands out in the mix, which is astonishing considering how the music surrounds him like a rioting mob.

And while Ima Robot bears all the polish of a band that can woo the very masses it built a monument to, there is a dark heart beating within these tunes. The songs on “Monument to the Masses” run from war-spurred despair to sardonic humor to decadent machinations, often moving along so quickly from one to the next that it is sometimes easy to miss the depth of the weirdness. That is until the band settles into the slow-burn shock of “Lovers in Captivity,” a song that reminds how great it was back in the day to let Joy Division make you feel miserable.

Ima Robot is currently touring colleges with All-American Rejects and that package hits the area three times, first on Saturday at The Mullins Center at University of Massachusetts in Amherst, then Sunday at Framingham State College, and Monday at Providence College in Rhode Island.

Ebert voiced a few misgivings about being on a college tour in which the crowds can sometimes be indifferent. He much prefers a crowd ready to unleash a reaction. Though, sometimes the reaction can be a little violent, as was the case a couple of years ago when Ima Robot opened shows for H****stank, a band about as opposite from Ima Robot as one can be.

“They hated us,” Ebert said. “People were throwing stuff at us all night. I wouldn’t walk back to our tour bus unless I was armed with a couple of bottles.”

Ebert said his band often gets judged quickly — and not always accurately — but the live show remains his favorite way to get across what Ima Robot is all about.

“If you hear one or two songs, you may put us in a category. But if you see us live, it’s hard to categorize,” he said.

Ima Robot, which drew some attention with the single “Dynomite” off its 2003 self-titled album, was initially lumped in with such New Wave revivalists Hot Hot heat and Franz Ferdinand. But Ebert and his longtime musical partner Timmy Anderson, who plays guitar, don’t wear that tag too well, especially on “Monument to the Masses.”

“Spontaneity was important during the making of this record,” Ebert said, adding that basic melodies and lyrics were experimented with and built upon as the band worked in the studio with veteran producer David Bendeth.

The archly Los Angeles duo, who recruited bass player Filip Nikolic and drummer Scott Devours after Justin Meldal-Johnson and Joey Waronker returned to Beck’s band, let the independent spirit fly on the new songs. There is raw aggression behind such tracks as “Stick it To the Man” as well as humorously damaged observations along the lines of “Creeps Me Out” (in which Ebert freaks out over a girl who is just too nice to him).

The band’s joyride sensibilities start with the electro-pop bounce of the opening track “Disconnect” and steadily illuminate a zig-zagging trail to the closing cinematic sweep of “Dangerous Life.”

“The music we’re doing is not just ‘let’s dance.’ It’s stylish, but a bit more high-brow than that. It’s a bit jarring and confrontational. And that’s not the easiest thing to sell,” Ebert said. “But it is fun to sell.”

Scott McLennan can be reached at tgmusic1@yahoo.com

Timmy Anderson, left, and Alex Ebert — the backbone of Ima Robot.

[Edited on 17-10-2006 by Phobiac]