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*** Rainer Maria

A BETTER VERSION OF ME

(Polyvinyl)

In the sensitive boy-against-world story of emocore, women have mostly been relegated to secondary and supporting roles — like, say, bass player. Rainer Maria, a Wisconsin-by-way-of-NYC trio named after the great German poet and now on their third full-length, have a female bassist in Caithlin De Marrais. But that’s not all she does: guitarist Kyle Fischer may get a turn or three at the mike with his earnest, warbly delivery, but it’s De Marrais whose open-throated, emotionally lacerated vocals dominate the band’s sound and distinguish their brand of bleak, Sunny Day romantic cynicism from the rest of the emo pack. “It’s dead” is the only definitive statement De Marrais manages in the elliptical “Artificial Light,” the densely melodic and churning opening track on A Better Version of Me. And it’s not as though she ever explained what “It” is. But you can tell from her yearning tone that something’s broken — a heart, a dream, or maybe just a promise; and as in the best emocore, you can feel her pain. Elsewhere, De Marrais and Fischer duet on a little ditty called “The Contents of Lincoln’s Pockets,” which, despite one of the disc’s brighter, jangling guitar riffs, does indeed run down a list of the contents of Abraham Lincoln’s pockets on the day of his assassination — “Two pairs of spectacles, a lens polisher, a pocket knife . . . ” — before asking, “How can you deal with that kind of information?” The answer, of course, is not very easily. And that’s the whole point.

— Matt Ashare