The urge to listen to post-hardcore comes over me in waves and, when I lived in Chicago, it usually coincided with winter. There’s something really raw about the cold and gray and how it slowly chips away at your willingness to confront it until you start planning your nights around it. So I’d spend a lot of time listening to bands like Small Brown Bike and The Plastic Constellations and tracking dirty snow into my office (read: cubicle). Maybe the thick distortion and moody riffs captured the essence of riding the “L” first thing in the morning when it was too cold to feel my face – the rough and textured melodies conveying the sort of frustration I’d experience when even good days were marred by bad weather. Maybe it somehow helped me cope with my affection for a place that was slowly driving me insane. It really doesn’t matter. The closest I got to a post-hardcore kick in Atlanta were a few hours spent on a Big Business binge.

I’m spending my summer working in San Francisco and living in Berkeley, but neither city has shown much appreciation for their seasonal obligations. It’s often cold and windy and the temperature always drops substantially at night. I’m sleeping under a comforter and shaving in a freezing bathroom. The gusts of cool air in the morning launch my tie into my face and my throw my suit jacket back like a drag racer’s airbag. It makes me bring warm clothing when I go out at night. It also makes me listen to the Polar Bear Club.

So I guess I would feel comfortable calling the Polar Bear Club the middle circle in the Thursday/Small Brown Bike Sven diagram I just created. The heavy distortion and violent drums on those heavier grooves remind me of when I first heard Small Brown Bike. They were on every mixtape in my car and seemed a fitting soundtrack for driving my 1989 Buick Century down unplowed streets. But the weather is easier out here and the Polar Bear Club is more accessible, especially with “Election Day.” The rhythm section locks together more often than Small Brown Bike but they never lose themselves in those massive emotional songs that Thursday sprinkles throughout their albums. The harder elements of the song (see: palm-muted lead into the chorus) provide context without being overbearing so when the group gets to the generally up-tempo chorus, it doesn’t seem out of place. Anytime a band avoids some the standard pitfalls of their genre I get pretty excited.

Writing about music is a difficult thing and it requires a good deal of skill to do well or, in my case, a great deal of luck. It’s difficult to write about a song when you first hear it because it can be pretty challenging to articulate what attracts you to a certain sound. By the time you’ve become more familiar with it, you might lose your desire to write about it or fail to convey the excitement you felt not so long ago. Last night, after I saw that Justin had posted, I felt the need to contribute, and fortunately found myself pretty enthused about “Election Day.” Unfortunately, that enthusiasm arrived well past my bedtime and I’m a little tired today. I guess it’ll be an early one tonight.