Make Believe

Of Course

[4/5] When your band is fronted by as charismatic, confounding and cerebral a figure as Make Believe’s Tim Kinsella, it’s hard to push your music outside of that dude’s shadow. And when your second album is inspired by equally extra-musical matters-as is Of Course by the 2005 arrest of drummer/Tim’s cousin Nate Kinsella for indecent exposure onstage in Oklahoma-well, the rest of the band might as well just use the press campaign for a sabbatical. But for what it’s worth, Of Course isn’t great for Tim’s cracked, elliptical performances or Nate’s subject matter; rather, it’s guitarist Sam Zurick-easily one of the 10 most creative players in rock-who makes the album. Nimble-fingered, idiosyncratic and incredibly sympathetic to rhythm and nuance, Zurick refracts emo’s plaintive tones through a Captain Beefheart lens, arriving at sounds that are alternately gorgeous (“Plants Dance”) and discombobulated (“Pat Tillman, Emmitt Till”). Nate’s beautifully fractured drumming, as always, provides the perfect anchor; here’s hoping it doesn’t get overshadowed by his wee-wee. (FLAMESHOVEL) Aaron Burgess