Album review: Versus' 'On the Ones and Threes'

VERSUS

"On the Ones and Threes"

Kindred spirits: Mission of Burma,

Yo La Tengo, Seam

Show: With Unrest, the Rondelles and Bossanova on Saturday at Black Cat. Show starts at 8 p.m. 202-667-4490. http://www.blackcatdc.com.

"On the Ones and Threes" is the first output after nearly a decade of inactivity from Versus. But instead of sounding like a reunion album, it simply sounds like the next album from the New York indie rock group. Even during its original run, there was something stately and mature about the band's songs. The slacker ethos of much of '90s indie rock was absent from the band's recordings, which were polished and pristine.

That remains the case during the band's second act. And just as Versus was in no hurry to release a new record, they are in no hurry on it. "Nu Skin" is a shape-shifting mini-epic, starting as a sinister dirge that gives way to a serene, call-and-response chorus before devolving into a feedback-fueled guitar freakout that brings to mind Mission of Burma.

Slipperiness is still the band's calling card. "Into Blue" comes closest to a straightforward pop song, with Fontaine Toups's breathy vocals leading a standard soft-verse/loud-chorus charge. But for every song like that, there are two like "Cicada" and "Saturday Saints" on which the hooks and harmonies (with fellow singer Richard Baluyut) are buried within layered arrangements. But after a decade of silence, a little digging is hardly an inconvenience.

-- David Malitz