RIDDLE OF STEEL

Got This Feelin'

Ascetic

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Back before the term "emo" defined drippy, overwrought tunes about girls who ignored you in high school (see All-American Rejects and Saves the Day), it was used to describe bands like Jawbox and Rites of Spring, who took the cold, pulverizing sound of hardcore, shifted its perspective from the institutional to the personal and added a little melody. The second album from the St. Louis rock trio Riddle of Steel is rooted in this antiquated definition of emo but it is hardly stuck there. Hardcore is but a faded blueprint for tracks like "Invisible Hands" and "Aquiline," which build up drama with guitars that alternately soar or brood. "The Lovers of Nothing" sounds like Devo trying its hand at Queens of the Stone Age's stoner-rock rumble, and "Deeper Still" channels math-rock guitar lines into a surprisingly warm and, daresay, catchy chorus. In the end, Got This Feelin' sounds less like a Frankenstein jumble of conflicting musical ideas than an alternate evolutionary path that emo might've been better off taking.

-- David Peisner