Soccer Team

“Volunteered” Civility & Professionalism (Dischord)

By Anne C. Johnson
Published: October 5th, 2006 | 8:46pm

Soccer Team’s line-up consists solely of Ryan Nelson (Routineers, Most Secret Method, Beauty Pill) and Melissa Quinley who both have the distinction of being employees of D.C.’s Dischord Records. This effort is largely an experiment in recording — all songs were recorded on an 8-track or a 4-track — and done in the true spirit of DIY with Ryan handling the guitars, bass, and the drums with vocal and keyboard duty shared by both Ryan and Melissa. The only outside contributions are violins by Jean Cook and handclaps lent by Beth Baldwin.

“Volunteered” Civility & Professionalism begins abruptly with the vaguely Motown opener “So You Like it Vague, Huh?,” the distorted organ of “Solid Ring Fighters,” and the clever, “We Closed a Record Store.” The sturdy but cautious wall of sound Soccer Team builds begins to buckle somewhere after the instrumental title song. Taken individually, all of the tracks are very good and clever lyrics save a few from being merely filler (“Johnny Hart’s BC” and “Here’s Why Dancers Smoke”). The drone of all low-fi, all the time can be slightly wearisome but Soccer Team comes back strong with the jittery-but-bluesy “Traffic Patterns” which is both resourceful and inventive.

With the exception of “Say Forever” which sounds like a lounge version of something off of Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville, Soccer Team has created a very individual sound just by slightly tweaking familiar patterns, adding fuzz, and employing the occasional key change.