Tom Lynch

Rasputina’s devilish, explosive "Oh Perilous World," the chamber-rock, cello-driven band’s new record, ignites from the start. "1816, The Year Without a Summer," the album’s opener, features leader Melora Creager’s emphatic vocal musing over darkly sheathed string arrangement. The rest of the record reveals nothing that would suggest this was a band’s sixth record—there’s a sharp element of energy here, a perhaps newfound verve from Creager (who cut her teeth as a cellist for Nirvana on the band’s "In Utero" tour). The similar Renaissance sound is still present, but the subject matter has changed—Creager looks to the modern day for inspiration (or disgust, however you interpret). One song is even a translation of an Osama Bin Laden speech; another an indictment of African children’s armies. Some moments are unspeakably medieval, some are infectious experiments that invoke the stage—Creager says she looked to some Broadway musicals for direction. And when the distortion pedal is used, it’s as heavy as a stone castle.

"This [record] was something extremely different for me," Creager says. "I had a feeling, it was like, ‘OK, I’ve spent my whole career, in the back of my mind, trying to get on the radio,’ but that never happened, and probably is not gonna happen. It was just burned into my subconscious from managers and record companies. I had to get rid of all of that—that was really freeing [in terms of] songwriting. It makes a better song in the end. I think because I’ve done this a long time, that’s not really a suitable thing for me to have in the back of my head. It doesn’t go with [my] views on anything."

A noticeable difference between this record, for example, and Rasputina’s early work is Creager’s increasing tendency to lean towards verbal complexity—on "Oh Perilous World," she weaves lines with racehorse swiftness. "I find my older songs are harder to remember when playing live," she says, "even if they are simpler. Something comes with experience to make fluidity. The new lyrics are really complicated, but they just flow out…This new record was really fun, it really felt free. And, I love words, and it’s like a gluttony of words."

Rasputina plays July 8 at Abbey Pub, 3420 West Grace, (773)478-4408, at 9pm. $15. (2007-07-02)

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