Emo’s

Friday, April 22

Cue

Bring Back My Love (Earth Gets Back)

Only the tightest instrumentalists elicit a Pavlovian response from their audience – a cocked head of incomprehension. Something’s being said, but what? Jazz is explicit, but skillful post-rock embodies enigma. The melancholic mystery of Bring Back My Love manages both. The combination of Clarke Dominick’s keyboards and Stacy Meshbane’s violin cutting through the local quartet’s dense rock ballast immediately sets Cue apart from the instrumental fallout in the wake of Explosions in the Sky. They’re Austin’s Dirty Three, only solar-powered, not shadow-driven. The quarry cutter breaks from “The Sun Has Risen Twice Today,” Meshbane stabbing at Jason Brister’s taunting drum beat, dance the assassination tango. The free-flight migration of “Every Wing All at Once” matches the plucked twilight of “The End of the Rule of Nostalgia,” which steps onto a piano plateau of sparring beats and the rising waters of guitarist Colin Swietek’s burst dam. Meanwhile, the epic palace coup of “Thulsa Doom” is nearly swept asunder by the 13-minute tidal sweep of “Granny Suite.” Each track stands alone, which makes the titanic voyage of Bring Back My Love slightly choppy in places, but the overall effect is one of, if not a perfect storm, then the white noise tempest whose rain-weighted clouds beg you to release their outpour.

***.5

This article appears in April 22 • 2005.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.