In Da Club: These Modern Socks at the Varsity Theater

Dressed in crisp Pee Wee suits tailored, it would seem, for back-to-school taunts, These Modern Socks opened their show this past Friday at the Varsity Theater with "Big Talker," an appropriate introduction to a set of wordy songs. Wordy and ambiguous, though theirs is not a careless, noncommittal ambiguity. The Socks have something important to say; they're just not wildly concerned with whether or not you know what that something is. Or maybe they don't quite know either. No matter. When songwriter Corey Palmer (also of Daykit) applies his to-melt-for voice to smartly orchestrated, danceable rock tunes, tossing off some good observational lines along the way, the listener's search for clarity ends at "danceable" and "to melt for." I liked it best when the five-piece went full-tilt with the guitars and the keyboardist ticked off a bouncy pop that made me throw my arms and legs around like it was 1984. When Palmer switched to keyboards for two numbers in the middle of the set, the rest of the band seemed to lose interest in the drawn-out emo narrative Palmer indulged in. When he switched back to guitar, the band recouped their prior enthusiasm for Postal Service pandemonium.