Rustic Overtones, Light at the End

(Self-released, CD)

The music biz can get overly specific when it comes to genre tags. You have your glam rock, your indie-pop rock, your ambient alternative and so on. Many bands select these labels and stick to them, sadly pigeonholing themselves for all time. Thankfully, Portland, Maine’s Rustic Overtones [1] have come to the rescue — at least their own rescue.

Reuniting after five years apart, the shape-shifting septet has released Light at the End, a genuinely satisfying disc that brazenly jumps between genres, never settling on the same ole’ rock/jazz/funk stuff that’s become so tiresome.

The album’s opening track, “Rock Like War,” explodes with heavily distorted guitars riding a wave of intense staccato drums and killer horn lines. Immediately following, the band changes pace and strips down on “Letter to the President,” a folksy ditty with an incendiary antiwar message. The song’s central character, a soldier examining his conscience, asks the president one of the hardest questions facing proponents of the Iraq debacle: “How am I a hero if I don’t know what it’s for?”

Towards the middle of the disc, Rustic Overtones takes a delightfully surprising detour into 1950s Las Vegas, employing a sexy mix of lush string arrangements and melodic horn arpeggios. The standout on this record, “Hardest Way Possible,” is one hell of a slinky number, switching from standard lounge-style verses to a funky, bass-laden breakdown that begs listeners to dance. In fact, you may want to pick up the record for “Oxygen” alone, which sounds like a collaboration between Charlie Daniels, pre-1980s Chicago and Sublime. Taken at face value, that sounds like a musical disaster. In fact, it’s sonic gold.

Light at the End falters a bit in its last quarter, covering ground that the record’s earlier songs traversed with more success. Even so, Rustic Overtones have reconvened to make a stellar disc that shuns the idea of labeling music. It’s just the way I like it.

Catch Rustic Overtones this Friday at the Higher Ground Ballroom with Ithaca-based funk group Revision.