System and Station. Wednesday, Aug. 20

[August 13th, 2008]

Ten years and a handful of lineup changes after the band’s formation—and seven years after relocating to Portland from Madison, Wis. (where the band was a pretty big deal)—System and Station still struggles to find a hometown audience. “If anything, the past seven years have been total self-awareness about why we’re doing this in the first place,” says frontman Ryan “RFK” Heise. “As far as making a career out of music in Portland? Yeah, it’s tough.”

It’s tougher yet for a relatively straightforward rock band like S&S. And while rock can be a dirty (or at least ironic) word in folk-pop Portland, System and Station is an impressive, disciplined band, making guitar rock that’s both musically and emotionally complex while retaining lots of riffage. The band’s latest, A Nation of Actors, isn’t a stylistic departure for S&S so much as it is a honing of the band’s strengths. Built on a tight-knit rhythm section (with drummer Bryan Fairfield’s drums leveled nice and loud), Sunny Day Real Estate-style bright guitar blasts and math-rock departures, A Nation of Actors tightens the band’s songs into more straightforward verse/chorus blueprints. But as always, this is a band that believes in payoffs—for each chugga-chugga build-up and noodling guitar there’s an emotional release—the “ooh oohs” in “The Magnetic North” and the guitar duel in “Sell Out.”

The Larry Crane-produced album isn’t quite as lyrically deep as it is musically, but Heise is a master of verbal phrasing, economy and authenticity. His controlled near-scream vocals describe a broken, celebrity-obsessed America without ever climbing onto a high horse. The only catch being that System and Station is attempting to address and inspire people most susceptible to corruption using what may be—in Portland, anyway—a dying language: rock ’n’ roll.

“I’ve accepted the idea that besides us at this table, there might not be anybody lis—” Heise stops himself mid sentence, perhaps thinking of the band’s more successful road trips (S&S leaves on its 19th national tour this month) more than its uneven local crowds. “There are a lot of people [who] really love it, and I connect with them.” But as for his rock-star dreams, Heise says he gave them up a long time ago. “The way I look at it is, ‘Do I enjoy what I’m doing? Can I handle whatever shit job I have to do to continue what I’m doing?’ The answer is yes.”