These musical equations are in balance

Local Band: At Dusk

By Barbara Mitchell

The Portland Tribune, Jul 21, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

2006 Amanda Lucier

No hallway can contain Portland’s At Dusk, including (from left) Greg Borenstein, Cary Clarke and Will Hattman.

You know you’re in for something more than your standard-issue indie rock from the first notes of “You Can Know Danger,” the third album from Portland’s At Dusk. Guitars chime and collide, and impassioned vocals kick in at just the right moment. It’s math rock done right – a glorious concoction of precision, dissonance and melody.

From the opening notes of “In the Background” clear through to the buoyant closer, “Oh, It’s Way Too Late,” At Dusk tears into its material with urgency and passion, not to mention skill. “Wish I Was Younger,” with its hypnotic sung/spoken vocals, slips nicely into the nervous, jittery “Forever Ago,” which morphs and swells to new and bigger crescendos before abruptly dropping into the jazzy-jagged “We Saw Them Leave You There.”

If you’re not hooked by then, At Dusk probably isn’t your cup of tea. If you are, you’ll be wishing the polyrhythmic proceedings stretched beyond the 10 compelling tracks – and you’ll definitely want to check them out live.

– Barbara Mitchell

9 p.m. SUNDAY, July 23, Food Hole, 20 N.W. Third Ave., $5, all ages

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