Do Indie-Popsters Pinback Answer To a Higher Authority?

It seems indie-pop duo Pinback have religion on their minds. First they titled their third album Summer in Abaddon, that last word in the title referencing “the angel of the bottomless pit” as it appears in the Bible’s Book of Revelations. Now their latest, Autumn of the Seraphs (Touch and Go), names another season and another celestial body, this time recalling the highest order of angels in the Old Testament. Are these guys secretly Bible thumpers?

“It’s actually a black metal theme,” deadpans Pinback’s clean-cut multi-instrumentalist Rob Crow from his home in San Diego, referring to the extreme metal subset known most for burning churches and dressing up like KISS. “The last one’s about like a summer cruise with Cronos of Venom. And the new one is about the Mayhem song ‘Fall of Seraphs…’ Get it—fall, autumn? And though it has seraphs on it, they’re all dead.”

Their music, however, couldn’t sound further from their inspirations. With vocals that recall the Shins more than Mayhem, and intricate, jazzy piano-guitar interplay, supported with bouncy bass and the work of many different drummers, Autumn of the Seraphs is one of the more enjoyable indie-pop releases this year. As for the metal influences, Crow says, “Sometimes the lyrics could be in a metal song and nobody’d know the difference… There’s nothing we wouldn’t try to use, but there’s a whole lot we wouldn’t succeed at trying to use.” When Pinback went into the album, they wanted it to sound more musically dense, and they achieved that with flying colors. But that just comes with experience.

In the three years since Abaddon, Crow has released a variety of records covering many different genres: metal in Goblin C*ck, post-Zappa rock in the Ladies (with Hella’s drummer) and he even appeared on Team Sleep, some Deftones members’ side project. At the same time, Pinback’s other half, Zach Smith, rekindled his previous band, beloved indie-rockers Three Mile Pilot, and has begun working on new music with them. But with such differences in their outside interests, it’s easy to assume Crow might have a lot of convincing to do when it comes to titling these albums.

“[Smith] doesn’t like anything,” says Crow, laughing. “As long as it sounds basically aesthetically pleasing, he likes it. As long as I have three reasons for why I want to call something something—as long as I can bulls*it him for like five minutes—I’m good.”

Crow’s sense of humor reflects the levity of their music. If Pinback weren’t fun after all these years, he and Smith might not have stuck together for almost a decade. But now that their third and fourth albums have had titles covering the third and fourth seasons in a year, what’s left for album titles? “We’re just gonna call it Photogenic Motherf*ckers,” says Crow, Master of the Put-On. “Yeeeeah. ’Cause we’re so hot.”

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