The Evens

The Evens

[2] Raise your hand if you first caught the Evens-a duo of Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye (guitar, vocals) and the Warmers’ chief alumna, Amy Farina (drums)-online in a video clip, singing about vowels in a spot for the Washington, DC, public-access kids’ show Pancake Mountain. Good-then you’ll remember how upbeat and tuneful the pair’s goofy little song was; how you couldn’t remember the last time MacKaye or Farina looked so damned happy to be playing minimalist, herky-jerky post-punk; how you left the clip wanting more, thinking, “Wow, if these two ever made an album together…” Well, they have, and it sucks: Owing more to the cassette-only days of indie-pop wellsprings like Shrimpster than it does to anything either musician has done separately, The Evens finds MacKaye and Farina shuffling and jangling their way through 12 tracks that are so feeble and lifeless, It’s actually painful to put effort into reviewing them. So, yeah: Fugazi rules; the Warmers were godlike; and I guess this is what they call slaughtering the sacred cow. (DISCHORD)-Aaron Burgess