Record Review - 1 August 05 2000

Enon has a built-in audience, but no set program. Made up of former Brainiac guitarist John Schmersal, Rick Lee of Skeleton Key and, alternately, Skeleton Key's Steve Calhoon and Matt Schultz of Ohio's Let's Crash, Enon touches on some of the brainier moments of Schmersal's former band, but opts to concentrate on a sweet schizophrenia while establishing itself as much more than a side project.

Believo! opens with the falsetto funk of "Rubber Car," a midnight vulture of a track fed on the most meaty parts of Beck and Girls Against Boys (known to Internet junkies as the theme song to www.atomfilms.com's Bikini Bandits). Sex continues to sell as the follow-up, "Cruel," hisses like Portishead pouring from broken speakers on a lost highway at night. The title track will appeal to fans of the Dismemberment Plan and Les Savy Fav, while more sensitive types can claim "Come Into" and "Get the Letter Out," together constituting a lilting loopy section of the album full of whispery vocals and Wurlitzers á la Grandaddy and Creeper Lagoon.

Varied? Very. What holds Believo! together is captivating lo-fi percussive experimentation, like Weird Al on the low end of a manic phase, his drummer holding a suitcase perilously between his legs, beating out a pint-glass punk-folk rhythm on a dimly lit street corner. Samples and cymbals skitter around the lurching carousel of hipster blues and hip-holsters of shotgun soul. Could Enon be equal brainiacs to Beck? Believo! will leave you a believer.

Enon play the Echo Lounge, Sat., Aug. 5.