Twelve Thousand Armies

If rockabilly is the sound of ’50s teen rebellion, then indie pop could be the siren call of disheartened and dissolute dreamers, a language in which Twelve Thousand Armies auteur Justin Williams is fluent. He clothes his melancholy musings in a warm coat of Beatles-inspired melodies, with a psych-folk fringe. The music’s the kind of stuff that seeps into your brain and takes up residence. Williams has always had a gift for hooks, going back to his band The Talk. They walked a more boisterous power-pop and punk-pop line. Initially a sleepier, more downcast side-project, Twelve Thousand Armies moved to the fore in the last couple years after The Talk called it quits and Williams relocated to Carrboro.

Recruiting a new band from the Triangle, Williams recorded North Carolina, the follow-up to Twelve Thousand Armies’ 2005 debut, The Mirth These Days. Its dozen tracks are ripe with existential longing set against the backdrop of the shallowest place on earth. While not a straight narrative, North Carolina appears to be something of a concept album inasmuch as it deals almost solely with issues of loneliness and discovering who one really is while living in California. It runs from the laconic dream-pop drift of “Silver Lake In Bloom,” where Williams longs to return to Carolina, to the Big Star lost-love lament “With The Leaves.”

Craftsmanship and wordplay have never been big problems for Williams. He may have even held himself in a bit too high regard if one reads between the lines of North Carolina and accepts them as autobiography. But with his wounded tenor and bittersweet sentiments, Williams and Twelve Thousand Armies are well-suited to the music of sad realization. —Chris Parker