Din

If you’ve seen Din play clubs, odds are you’ve been both impressed and confused: few other local bands do lush piano ballads and heavy guitar rock in the same set, or feature both an ethereal female singer and a gutsy male one. On their third release, Din have enlisted producer David Minehan to make sense of their wide-ranging ideas, and come up with a unified album that honors the local tradition of edgy/brainy pop from the Cars to Tribe (two Tribe members’ younger sibs play in Din, and “Funny Man” finds them channeling Tribe’s sound). There’s still a lot of stylistic ground covered — the opening “Fly on the Wall” is all guitars and testosterone, whereas the closing “Stoned” could be Kate Bush fronting Pink Floyd — but Minehan helps them get a consistent sound, partly by having singers Glenn Steadman and Carlene Barous make cameos on each other’s tunes. They also play out a tense male/female dialogue on “Lady Killer.” The guitars are just tough enough to avoid overwhelming the melodies, and singer/keyboardist Barous remains the obvious focal point. Her sly and catchy “Grable” would be an obvious radio hit if it were longer than 1:13. And when she slips into heartbroken mode on “Angel,” she sounds like one of those mysterious women that Ric Ocasek was always singing about.

On the Web
Din: http://www.myspace.com/dinboston