Is it okay to say “traditionalist indie rock”? If so, the non-term applies well to Chapel Hill’s Disband, who have a healthy hankering for the early ’90s on In Small Rooms, their first official full-length for Ernest Jenning (they did a split with labelmates Kudzu in 2002). Guitar-crammed tracks like “Big Wait” and “Capture the Flag” revel in half-time jags and squalls as vocalist Greg Collins shouts and wavers his opaque poetics (“I do all the things that you ask me not to do”, from “Flag”). The lively “Basement Life” could have followed Polvo’s “Channel Changer” on a dorm room mix tape in 1992 – it even name checks Archers of Loaf’s era-defining Icky Mettle. The similarities in guitar tone and structure continue throughout In Small Rooms, with “Un-American” and “Where’s My Rocket” emerging as later standouts. – Johnny Loftus
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