Heroes and Heroine Cosades may Lack only for tact BY SAM PFEIFLE

At 19, Kyle Gervais has already been around the block at least once. Fronting both Glory Trap (winners of Reindeer Rock Off 2002) and the Check, and playing second fiddle in Haven’t Talked Since for a time, he’s gotten a taste of the Southern Maine music scene. Frankly, it’s left him bitter and sour. Now he’s got a new project, Cosades — announcing it with an EP earlier this year on which he played all the instruments, and now laying the band open for bare with the full-length A Lack of Heroine, which features drummer Chris Boivin and guitarist Nate Carll (they’ve since added bassist TJ Metcalfe). It’s Gervais’s most intimate and aggressive project yet, and it burns with an anger we once called teen angst.

It’s the first thing I ask him about, this anger, as he and Boivin sit on my couch on a Monday morning. Is he as angry and dissatisfied as he sounds on this record?

"Yeah, pretty much," he says. "That’s why I started playing: There was [no band] that was getting any cred that I thought deserved any cred . . . and I feel it’s very hypocritical. The same people who are supporting these local bands that sound like that are the people who would be bashing national bands making the same music."

He’s not so angry as to name bands or direct his comments at me specifically, but that’s okay. I’m pretty quick on the uptake. Nor is he being a dick, in my opinion. He’s just being honest. He’s 19 and incredibly excited about the possibilities that music offers. I understand the disappointment one feels when one realizes that pop music doesn’t have to be insipid and boring — it just is.

I remember making statements like: "You don’t understand how much music I have, how many CDs I listen to." I may not have made them to music writers who’ve tried to make a career out of listening to music, but I’ve said similarly stupid things, I’m sure.

So, the obvious question is, what separates Cosades from the rest of the pack?

"I like them," Gervais says of other local bands, "but they don’t do it for me . . . I’m trying to make my band do it for me, do it for everyone. I want every single song to impress the shit out of every single person, including myself." And he does make a point to single out bands like Animal Suit Driveby, Softer, and Why Hello as bands he feels like he’s on the same page with, just different paragraphs.

But don’t we all play in bands because we want to play music that does it for us?

Sure, Gervais agrees, but "if you listen to the record, a lot of the songs, except for maybe song #7 and #10, they ask for your attention — lyrics more than sung, jarring chords — we’re kind of demanding for your attention . . . I’m not just playing music, I’m a musician. I’m not going to play four-chord songs just because it sounds kind of catchy — I’m not going to bore myself playing."

Boivin tries to put that in perspective: "From my point of view, the music that we’re making — the average music listener won’t necessarily immediately understand that, but I think that it’s a necessity for musicality to be brought into mainstream music, for catchy music to be brought into the realm of true orchestral, compositional . . ."

"The jazz element," Gervais interjects.

"There’s just so many things that could be infused into popular music," Boivin finishes.

They’re just ambitious, and maybe don’t know exactly how to express that notion. They like great music — Gervais cites Kid A, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Countdown to Ecstasy, Blonde on Blonde; Boivin is more of a Tool, Mars Volta, Incubus kind of guy — and they want to make great music. There’s nothing wrong with that. If they sometimes get frustrated with what’s popular, or mainstream, that’s just a symptom of wanting everyone to be able to experience music in the way that they do. They see evidence, too, that "there’s more bands right now that I’m more satisfied with both in the Portland scene and nationally than there have been in the past five years," says Gervais.

"Yeah, I’m not ashamed of the music scene anymore," offers Boivin.

It’s admirable and generous, in a way, for Cosades to wish a love of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on my mom. You might find other adjectives to describe that ideal.

Don’t let any of this obscure the album they’ve just put out. It has a lot going for it, and it accomplishes, with the help of producer Jon Wyman, a lot of the goals Cosades set for it. They wanted it to sound raw; it sounds raw. They wanted it to sound different from most everything else; there are only a few bands I can think of who sound similar, most of them very contemporary (if pinned, I might call them a mix of Death Cab for Cutie, the Used, and Fugazi). They wanted it to tell a story; it tells a story.

Mostly, it’s a story you’ve heard before, one of unrequited love, bad drugs, and a fair dose of self-loathing mixed with self-aggrandizement. The title track has this in spades. It launches right in, blended nicely from the Wilco-esque distortion break that follows the first track with a slick guitar progression. Gervais sets up good contrast between his ironic throaty singing, then basically a scream, and then the whispery delivery that bridges to the next verse. It breaks down, like they’re taking a deep breath, then they build out of it with some chords chunking behind an off-beat. "Good luck finding someone/ Who will love you just like I did," sings/screams Gervais for the chorus, "I don’t think that is possible/ But, whatever is." Is there anything more painful than the moment you finally understand it’s over? "It hurts to be alive," right?

"Is there anyone who even understands?" Gervais asks later, in "I’m Gonna Get You Good (Like Shania)," the revenge song to follow the breakup. No, no one ever understands. The guitars here are halting and jarring, and then do a little of that reaching up quickly for the high note kind of thing that nu-metal made popular.

Finally, with "Eggshell," penned by Carll, we get the backside of revenge — "I am powerless." This is the single you’ll hear on the radio, and with good reason. It’s basically a pop song, with a catchy hook to open, but there are some dissonance and ouch here to let us know Cosades aren’t interested in being the next Jan and Dean. Still, for contemporary pop, it’s pretty straight ahead, knowledgeable of everything from Faith No More to Hootie and the Blowfish (I know they’re going to hate that reference, but how else to explain "you would hold my hand" — so sweet).

For a second single, they’ll try "Wine Drenched," which tracks that whole "love sucks" period of the breakup. The chorus is pretty money: It’s Gervais singing at his best, supported by just a hint of guitar and drums. At first there’s hope that when "Wine-drenched girls sing sweet about love . . . I’ll hear you again." But by the finish, "Wine-drenched girls sing sweet about love as if they know anything at all."

But I think "Why Darling Matters" is the best song here. The singing that opens seems the most honest on the album, just a straight, plaintive exhalation from the diaphragm. The notion that "She was the first one to understand" is accompanied by a playful swirl of a guitar part. And so he latched on too tightly too quickly. She pulled away. He reacted badly: "I’m sorry for breaking down," Gervais sings, and his voice actually breaks in anguish. "I was only trying to see where I could go."

That speaks to Cosades as whole, I’m thinking. They’re sorry if they ruffle some feathers along the way (or not), but they’re just trying to see where they can go.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at sam@phx.com

Cosades play the Bates College Silo, in Lewiston, May 19 (call (207) 795-7359); and the Station, in Portland, May 20 (call (207) 773-3466).