Saturday, February 29, 9 p.m.
Rozz-Tox, 2108 Third Avenue, Rock Island IL
Iowa City-based sophisti-pop/New Wave crew Anthony Worden & the Illiterati bring their strain of baroque, '60s-influenced pop composition to Rozz-Tox on February 29.
Anthony Worden & the Illiterati are one of those bands that harps heavily on the fact that they’re a “rock and roll band,” plain and simple, when the reality is that their music is much more complex and sophisticated than whatever potentially generic implications might stem from that style distinction. Sure, their songs focus on voice/guitar/bass/drum arrangements, and they are certainly a rock and roll band in the broad sense of the term. But they definitely take pleasure in warping rock signifiers into progressive frameworks, writing songs that have enough tiered hooks, one-off bridges, and breakdowns to make your head spin. Call it “prog lite,” as each individual section possesses enough sugary sweet melody and Beatles-esque harmony to keep listeners raised on the British Invasion happy, but the composite of all these segments is pretty baffling, in a nice way, when taken all together. It’s hard to hear this brand of willfully witty, combinatory pop/rock, charged with the energy of '60s sophistication, and not think of another group that really hammered this home on their road to success: Vampire Weekend. But while Vampire Weekend have always flirted with a sort of sickening upper-class cheesiness, tossed off in highfalutin Wes Anderson-core vocabulary choices and flourishes of lavish orchestral instrumentation, Worden and company stay a little bit closer to the earth with their choices. They get a little cheeky in their delivery, but they don’t go full country club.
Take “The Slightest Notion,” the first single from their new album Voilá. The song’s verse melody moves quickly up and down the scale with the kind of fleet-footed pace characteristic of The Byrds or Abbey Road-era Beatles, as guitar lines and keyboard chords interlock into a jolly yet intricate backdrop for Worden and fellow vocalist Elly Hofmaier to trade mini-verses over. The two singers have great chemistry, as Hofmaier falls closer to the range of, say, Carole King, with a soft swoon between notes, while Worden’s voice hits a drier, more stately delivery, not far from the catalog of The Zombies. When Hofmaier gets the chance later in the song to lead a vocal break, it becomes “The Slightest Notion”'s most compelling moment, as her vocals layer together into a cascade of wordless cooing and close harmony. Later, the song breaks into a bridge that interpolates a hook from “It’s Oh So Quiet,” made legendary by Björk but written originally for singer Betty Hutton in the 1950s. Here it seems clear that the band wants to reference Björk, with the '50s throwback vibe of her video for the song, but the moment becomes a kind of winking multi-level reference, threading its way back to the '90s and to the '50s at the same time.
Anthony Worden & the Illiterati play locally on February 29 with sets by Chrash and Dark Family, admission to the 9 p.m. concert is a sliding scale of $5-10, and more information is available by calling (309)200-0978 or visiting RozzTox.com.
