Castles soothes and angers

If a tree falls in an empty forest, does it make a noise? What's the sound of one hand clapping? Can an indie rock band stand alone without a drummer? The first two rhetorical questions may be infinitely unanswerable, but the third is a bit more complicated. Shedding light to the subject are Oberlin's own Hantai with their self-released full-length debut, Hidden Castles.

While the duo have entertained many a drunken listener at Harkness kitchen parties, a solely audio version of their melancholy collaboration is a new experience. Soft and reserved, Hidden Castles captures the Hantai flavor in ten original songs, packaged in a somewhat unconventional little booklet with "alternate covers" and minimal lyrics - reprinted with permission, of course. But, however cute the cut-out xeroxes of Aaron and Ginger may be, mixed reactions to the band's minimalist style are inevitable.

On the whole, Hidden Castles is like going to hear the band live: everyone crowds around as Simmons and Brooks tune their guitar and bass, respectively. Seemingly hesitant with inexperience, the sound produced is surprisingly thoughtful and well-rehearsed. You're almost bouncing along at points, until you realize something is still missing. Something very valuable; an essential to most any band. It puts the energy in rock; the slow, travesty-stricken pulse in emo and, most obviously, the drum in drum-and-bass. Suddenly, it dawns on you: Hantai is entirely percussion-free.

The fact that Hidden Castles is a simple, stripped down recording of two young beings and their instruments is both unique and bothersome. While songs like "Sundowner" and "Fingerpaint" stand alone in quiet thoughtfulness, other tracks need a little percussionary motivation. The result makes for an incredibly impatient feel to the majority of the album. One could wait for the drums to break in for a solid hour, but they are nowhere to be seen. It's not the Hantai style.

While the lacking element detracts from the album's completeness, Hantai should be applauded for their brevity in sticking with such a small roster of sounds. The album's innocence is almost trendy, except for the fact that the male and female vocals declaring this naiveté are nearly inaudible. True, Hidden Castles was recorded primitively in Harkness 311, but if a band is going to bother going through the painstaking recording process, there should definitely be more to show for the finished product than fuzzy melody and distant voices. While Hantai know what it means to be different, they still have a lot of growing room.

-by Lauren Viera