The Core

STEREO TOTAL: (l-r) Eric Allen, Hilarie Sidney, Robert Schneider and John Hill.

The Apples in Stereo find their seeds.

by A.D. Amorosi

The late '80s saw Brian Wilson's lovely, layered masterpieces Pet Sounds and Smile become musical touchstones for an irksome majority of alterna-types, ranging from the great (anything Sean O'Hagan or Stereolab touched) to the awful (nearly everyone else). The Elephant 6 label -- a collective of ideologists stretching from Colorado to the Carolinas -- bore the holiest and most inventive of The Beach Boys' devout followers.

Leading the charge over indie celebrity acts like Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel was The Apples in Stereo, the method by which songwriter/ singer/guitarist Robert Schneider and drummer Hilarie Sidney composed their teenage symphonies to God.

"It was an interesting part of our lives and definitely good for us, and everyone involved, as we created each other's hype," says bassist/backup vocalist Eric Allen outside a Mississippi Taco Bell about the Elephant 6 mentality. "As the whole thing rose, we all rose. Like that Œrising tide in a harbor floats all the boats' analogy."

Shiny Apples chapters Fun Trick Noisemaker, Her Wallpaper Reverie and The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone defined the band's aesthetic: lo-fi, sweetly reminiscent and harmonious, plump with twisted twee, struggling to keep joy alive in a joyless world.

"Her Wallpaper Reverie definitely was about our best," says Allen. "It had so many sounds within each song. But it has the in-between parts to make it more cohesive. Definitely more literally stated as an entire work."

But.

Like a cover band who gets too drunk too often at gigs, AIS risked becoming the last band on the scene. Or worse: arcane musicologists.

So Schneider, Allen and company took a tip from their live show and blunted all their grand, garrulous arrangements and freak-out flourishes. AIS' new approach came up with 2002's brusque and brief Velocity of Sound (spinART), which fits its 11 songs into less than 30 minutes. Its metal-flecked power pop rivals The Ramones' Phil Spector record, End of the Century, for racing rock-outs.

"I don't think it was any one event," says Allen of changing the AIS aesthetic from bright and splashy tones to gradual contours done in charcoals, grays and deep blues.

"It was just something we wanted to do that we hadn't been doing." Allen saw it as a challenge to force Sensurround flourishes into a focused, concise dynamic. "We've always strived to make these amazing sounds on record but in the end those were never really as accurate in representing what the band sounded like live. So we decided to lay it down plainly."

Starting with the hate me-hate me of "Please" and winding its way through the cocky "That's Something I Do," Velocity is a force of nature -- unctuously up-tempo, seeringly snarly straight-ahead new wave guitar pop that's surprisingly informal. (There are, of course, occasional stops along the retro highway by way of "Better Days" and its oompah-loompah organs, and the backwards-trekking, aptly titled "Baroque.")

It's weirdly revolutionary to hear Apples in Stereo move from ornate frippery to direct discourse. Was it witnessing the proliferation of psychedelic-garage-Pet Sounds freaks so suddenly out from beneath the wreckage of rock, or were they just tired of relistening to The Chocolate Watchband and Harpers Bizzare?

"Some of all of that," exclaims Allen, with a laugh. "We made lots of Apples records that have great elements of psych and other '60s experiments. We just wanted to put something on record we hadn't yet."

"That kind of change really gives us a feeling of permanence," says Allen. "I think the only thing that we can do is make Apples music that no one else can. We sound like the Apples and it's really our thing."

The Apples in Stereo play Sat., Feb. 8, 9 p.m., $13-$15, with Oranger and Laguardia, The TLA, 334 South St., 215-336-2000.