I had never heard of the band Rogue Wave until I received their CD in my SPO. Out of the Shadow is their debut album, which was just recently re-released by Sub Pop Records this year. Upon first listening, I was optimistic—despite the dark moods of minor keys—Out of the Shadow is a fairly upbeat, happy collection of sufficient 60s-style indie-pop. Rogue Wave is said to be a lot like their label and tour mates The Shins, and Out of the Shadow does sound derivative of The Shins’ debut, Oh, Inverted World (Sub Pop, 2001).

After listening to it a few times, I began to doubt my initial reaction.

To understand and appreciate this album, one must know at least a bit of history on the band. Once upon a time, Zach Schwartz lived in California working for a dot-com industry and playing in a local rock band called the Desoto Reds. Suddenly, the US economy took a downturn, and like many other computer folk, Schwartz lost his job. Schwartz decided that he needed to figure out what he wanted to do with his life, so he quit his band, bought a one-way ticket, and spent an isolated, focused, and probably cold winter in Woodstock, NY. During this time, he wrote Out of the Shadow.

Schwartz must have figured out who he was, because he changed his name to Zach Rogue. He called up his producer buddy Bill Racine and put out an ad for recording musicians. Pat Spurgeon (drums), Sonya Wescott (bass), and Gram Lebron (guitar) came together with Rogue (nÈe Schwartz) to what’s now known as Rogue Wave. Out of the Shadow was released nearly two years ago by Rogue himself. It became popular enough in the indie-rock world that they soon signed with Sub Pop Records.

However, Out of the Shadow doesn’t quite live up to its initial billing. The album’s mixing is muddy, with the instrumentation indistinguishably blending together. The best (and most annoying) example of this is the drums being too loud and overriding the guitar. All of this can be excused by Rogue’s explanation of his desire of the record to be ragged. He certainly did accomplish this; the music is distilled down to its basic forms. It isn’t at all a bad thing to leave the recording in lo-fi; The White Stripes, among others, do an excellent job of minimalist mixing. The main problem is that the overdubs are fuzzy and the accompaniment sounds as if it was added as an afterthought.

Rogue’s voice, however, is pleasant enough to be comparable in tone to Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch. Unfortunately, the lyrics are very difficult to hear, partly because of Rogue’s mumbly style and the mixing. When the lyrics are audible, the listener finds that they consist most of non-sequiturs, and seem insignificant and meaningless. This is not always a bad thing, because anyone who has ever listened to Radiohead knows that lyrics don’t have to be logical or sequential to be superb. Radiohead’s lyrics work together with the music to convey a pertinent message, which Rogue fails to do. The only lyric that stuck out to me was “you can all get in line and lick my behind” because it was so odd and out of place. Rogue usually tends to self-pitying and bittersweet. Ultimately, the lyrics and melodies are not horrible, just not memorable.

I would recommend Out of the Shadow for anyone who likes The Shins, The New Pornographers, and Elephant 6 groups, essentially music that is styled like the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel. For everyone else, I would recommend it for background chilling music to pop in when you’re bored with your usual music, but not as a vital cornerstone to an essential music collection.