Exclamation Point

The Deluxe version of Grammar Debate! takes it easy.

by John Vettese

Everybody called us 'Grammar Debate! — the '90s-infused power-pop band,'" says Joe Lekkas. "But that's not what we are! And this new record, you'd never say that about."

Michael T. Regan

Nursing a Miller High Life in the back of the M Room, Lekkas ponders his band's forthcoming Broken Heart Deluxe and how it functions as a contrast to its 2007 debut, Cheetah vs. Helicopter.

The first album was guitars and more guitars. It was loud and hooky, with lots of New Pornographers chutzpah. It featured a bevy of local talents, like Alex Yaker of Roomtone and Carolynne McNeel of Rarebirds, adding slight harmonies, violin, keyboards and a bright ambience. In sum, Cheetah was a beautiful, ebullient record — perhaps a bit reminscent of Lekkas' previous band, the fast-and-loud Hilliard — but he knew Grammar Debate! could do better.

"It's all right, I guess," he shrugs. "I'm happy with moments of it, there are songs we still do live. But I would have liked to approach the recording a bit differently, to blend it with what I heard in my head." What Lekkas heard, if we're to judge by Broken Heart Deluxe, was something more intricate and subtle, an indie orchestra that downplayed the guitars and brought the piano to the forefront. The accentuating fringe instruments become key players, the four-part harmonies that were previously saved for finales now dominate entire songs.

These elements emerged because of Lekkas' longtime fondness for The Zombies, The Velvet Underground (whose outtake "Stephanie Says" the band renders beautifully on the new record) and '60s pop. But they also came from the distance that has grown between himself and his previous, more garage-punk predilections.

Broken Heart was a group effort. Yaker brought his keen arrangement sensibilities to the table — when the album gets its Web release next month, check out how the trumpets and cello play off one another on the title track — and McNeel, her fondness for syncopated stylizations (the Beatles-y swing of "Paper or Glass?").

Besides the new collaborative approach to writing, there's also the difference between a band that has just met getting thrown together into a recording project, and one where the members feel comfortable with each other and has had the time necessary to cross-pollinate styles.

"A few years playing with these guys gives more of a sensitive vibe to it," Lekkas says.

But while he likes to talk about how very different Broken Heart Deluxe sounds, those differences reveal themselves only when you play, say, the tender new synthpop sleeper "Coming Down" alongside the old single "Dr. Tiger."

Listen without immediate comparison, and you'll hear a singing voice that, while lesser in volume, carries the same distinctive, wistful tones. You'll hear common melodies, and common structure tricks; Grammar Debate! are still masters of the swell-to-emphatic crescendo that causes goosebumps. "We're the same band, but much more mature," Lekkas says. "But not mature in a boring way." Indeed, they still have the exclamation point; the amps are just turned down a touch.