Thrown for a Loop

Manning says that producing 20 Minute Loop's album bolstered his respect for the group. "They're some of the finest song craftsmen I've worked with," he says. "It really comes across as naked and raw and in your face."

Decline is at its rawest on the song "Mompha Termina," in which Atkins delivers a stream of wordless vocals, her voice rising to a feverish wail amidst Ostrowski's squalling guitar and Turner's breakneck drumming. (Atkins calls the song her ode to Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, with whom she's obsessed.) The album's best track, "Hell in a Handbasket," melds 20ML's two great strengths: abstract, image-laden lyrics ("Clothing stretched across a stone, cold cigarettes and chicken bones are all he left/ Stinking tide reminds a rat of better times and all the bread he left behind") and a hyperactive sense of rhythm built from a syncopated bass and vocal section, a chiming guitar, and a flute-backed chorus.

Headier instrumental arrangements aren't the only ambitious new moves, though. Atkins and Giles exhibit more elaborate lyrical roles as well. On "Pilot Light," the singers trade lyrics in a dissection of a relationship between a performer and a female concertgoer. After the pair take turns describing the girl, Giles rips into her faults: "She could fit a cue ball inside her mouth and whistle/ Thereby demonstrating everything: Her backward logic, hatred, and painful headtrip." Then, Atkins becomes the poor girl, building sympathy as she sings, "I checked the pilot light, it's out, we're in for one cold night/ I must admit, I'm terrified of spiders, shadows, bloodshot eyes."

In the past, such finely detailed lyrics and emotional turmoil has brought the group a dedicated following both locally and farther afield. Atkins fondly recalls a kid from New Jersey who downloaded a 20 Minute Loop song off Napster and showed up at the band's Starry Plough show -- with a gaggle of his field-tripping high school classmates in tow. "It's really different to play for kids because they're not jaded, [they're not] standing there with their arms crossed," says Atkins. "They're just generally into music. This kid said he lived near Hoboken, and Yo La Tengo was his favorite band. I was like, "Jesus, this kid's 16 years old, and Yo La Tengo's his favorite band!' That is cool. He's not listening to [rap-metal act] Linkin Park."

"They were just so inspirational to me," she adds. "It made me really sort of hopeful."

It remains to be seen whether or not 20 Minute Loop's darker approach will connect as well with its fans. While the band is happy with the new record, Giles isn't sure what will happen next. "We're still morphing into something," he says. "I don't know what it is; I don't know what it's going to sound like eventually. But you can sense the disparity on the new album."