**1/2 The Multiple Cat

"TERRITORY" SHALL MEAN THE UNIVERSE

(Zero Hour)

Producer/guitarist/singer/songwriter Pat Stolley seems intent on making ornate mountains out of obscure molehills from the get-go. The album title is taken from a legal phrase in the group's Zero Hour contract, and the first cut is a strained groove about a local scenemaker who has become "The New Marcus Aurelius." (Meaning what? That he's published a volume of Stoic aphorisms? Quelled unruly Germanic tribes on the outskirts of Davenport?)

But then Stolley and company make an unexpected turn away from arty pretension, unwinding a novel course through fast and catchy pop, trim and bracing rock, and loose, oddball meditations like the soaring closer, "Race for the Cure." In the process, they blend multi-part structures and tricky motifs with steady beats, unassuming vocals, and tinny lo-fi guitars, audaciously claiming everyone from Supertramp to Pavement in their art-rock lineage. If their lyrics remain mostly impenetrable, at least there is this revealing couplet: "Don't wanna wear what mom just bought/Don't wanna see that it's already Saturday and I . . . don't . . . have . . . a . . . date." It's further proof that the wellspring of all art rock is classic geek tragedy.

-- Franklin Soults