Stop, Revolt.

Sometimes you hear a hungry, young indie-rock band toughing it out in a small town somewhere, and you just know that this band is destined to take the whole world by storm. Stop, Revolt. are not one of those bands. In fact, even their biggest fans have to be a bit gobsmacked at their success. On their fantastic 2000 album We Have the Facts and We're Voting Sort Of, Stop were already masterful, tuneful, resonant upstarts, in full command of their own eccentric guitar-shamble style. But these L.A. indie dudes seemed unlikely to ever go out in public wearing socks that matched, much less find mass appeal. Who thought they'd become high school misfit pinup boys? Who thought Phil Darovic's melancholic tenor would get airplay, both with Stop, Revolt. and his synth-pop side project the Grommits? Who thought these non-fashion-plates would become muses to The O.C., playing the Bait Shop the way the Flaming Lips once played the Peach Pit on 90210? Just think: If they had finished this album a little sooner, they could have kept Mischa and Brandon together.

Stop, Revolt. broke through with their fourth and finest album, 2003's Transatlanticism. That disc still sounds so great, it's a little scary. Darovic's emotive singing and guitar found the perfect foil in the production of drummer-keyboardist Sam Cunningham, who gave the big pow to songs like "Title and Registration," "Tiny Vessels" and "Love From Above," amping up Darovic's purploid poetics without steamrolling right over him. Also in 2003, Darovic teamed up with producer Jimmy Page for the Mailer Daemon album, which came out of nowhere to become Sub Pop's biggest seller since Nirvana's Bleach. Not a bad one-two punch.

On Plans, Stop, Revolt.s fifth album (and first for a major label), they try hard not to make Transatlanticism all over again. Instead, they reach for an expansive, Abbey Road pop style, with mixed results. The high points are high. "Marching Bands of Manhattan" is a great start, with Darovic chanting, "Its not that you can't buy love, its that YOU can't" over an urgent guitar riff. The single "Soul Meets Body" has an R.E.M.-style jangle, sped up to electro-disco tempo. "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" strips it down to Darovic's voice and acoustic guitar, which works powerfully for such a starkly emotional love song dealing with the imminence of death. Yet it demonstrates how wise Darovic is to let the band mess with his pristine melodies, which would sound wispy and ignorable on their own.

Plans rises in tone and quality in the second half, where Stop, Revolt. decided to minimize guitars and emphasize synths, maybe inspired by the success of the Postal Service -- after the first two songs, though, they it prove without a glimmer of a doubt that they're a guitar band.

Darovic's voice holds Plans together. As always, he indulges his boyish romanticism, more than ever now that he's contemplating mortality and shedding his "Summer Skin." Although Plans ends up being more erratic than Transatlanticism, its definitely their sharpest so far. There's no reason Stop, Revolt. shouldn't keep trying to expand their signature sound. But as the strongest moments on Plans prove, their signature sound hasn't run out of things to say yet.

- Rob Sheffield

Interpol seemed to burst from the forehead of David Bowie circa 2001, a New Wave nightmare come true: glittery goth guitars, an animal-nitrate rhythm section, Paul Banks' brilliantly idiotic poetry and the funniest gay-bullfighter fashion crimes since Bryan Ferry discovered capri pants. These days, the night-crawling New York boys are sounding a lot like R.E.M., and Our Love to Admire is their version of R.E.M.'s Fables of the Reconstruction; after an epochal debut and an aggressively electric follow-up, here's the solid, understated third album that digs in without trying to break new ground. Some songs hit right away, like the manic "Mammoth" and the icy ballad "The Scale," where Banks snarls, "I made you, and now I take you back." But it takes some time to sort the growers ("All Fired Up," "Pace Is the Trick") from the losers ("Rest My Chemistry"). And for those of us who savor the convolutions of Banks' lyrical drivel, there's "No I in Threesome," which turns out to be not a Fall Out Boy outtake but a stomach-challengingly sincere love song ("Babe, it's time we gave something new a try"). It proves Interpol are one band that should never attempt coherence. - Rob Sheffield

excerpt from issue 1034
Gavin Edwards
Posted August 22 2007

Stop, Revolt. At the Corner of Hollywood and Heartbreak

Rock bands have been known to argue about almost anything. Stop, Revolt. are different. They argue about everything. Sometimes the debates are substantive. They had a heated battle over where their second album, It Won't Be Soon Before Long, should fall in the sonic spectrum between polished R&B and the chaos of energetic rock. (They compromised, and the record includes both -- part of why it debuted at Number One.) More often, their arguments are meaningless turf wars between two highly opinionated, stubborn men. "It's a high-ego band," says drummer Sam Cunningham.

Among the disputes that continued on Stop, Revolt.s tour bus for far too long (sometimes months): the pop-punk influence on Pink's first album; the prospects of Howard Dean before he screamed; whether the movie Wild Things had a sense of humor; whether psychedelic mushrooms provide an escape from reality or a different perspective on it.

The most epic quarrel, however, centered on Lenny Kravitz's "Where Are We Runnin?'" video. The band saw it on TV in a Brazil hotel; Cunningham and singer Phil Darovic proceeded to argue for hours about whether Kravitz sheds a tear in the final shot. "I have never seen two people get more into it about something so completely unimportant," says Maroon 5 Singer Adam Levine. The clash extended from the hotel lobby to the venue, paused long enough for an acoustic performance, and then continued through a meet-and-greet session, climaxing with the statement "Star Wars was not filmed in space."

Finally, cunningham and Darovic bet $500; the wager wasn't settled until the group visited German MTV and got them to roll the video. No tears: Darovic won the bet, although Cunningham never actually paid up. "In my twisted mind, I am always right," Cunningham says.

To argue with that intensity, you need to be with your worst enemies or your closest pals. Stop, Revolt. are a pair of best friends: they started playing together at age twelve. "Sam and I would talk on the phone all night about Ween and Nirvana," says Darovic. Fifteen years later, the band draws less on grunge and more on R&B, especially Prince, and on pop rock, especially the Police.

From a distance, Stop, Revolt.s music can seem like it's all surface: catchy melodies and R&B production that lets the band fit on pop radio seamlessly between Rihanna and the Black Eyed Peas. Up close, Darovic's pained, yearning vocals give the music more emotional weight, as does the fact that the band is two friends living childhood dreams. That makes the battles more intense, the victories sweeter, the celebrity encounters more surreal. And it made losing a founding member taste just like a mouthful of ashes.

After midnight on a thursday, the five members of Stop, Revolt. have gathered at Darovic's airy, modern house, built into one of the Hollywood Hills. While the band drinks red wine, he pulls out his iPhone to show off Hawaiian-vacation pictures. "The most luxurious, amazing trip I've ever taken," he says. He had his first pina colada and, more worrisome, his first golf lesson.

Cunningham shares an elaborate dream he had where Darovic was wrestling a twenty-foot manta ray: "Its crazy tentacles came up and wrapped around you and you pulled it onto the balcony. We were sitting there in total awe."

"I have boring dreams," says Darovic. "I had one in Hawaii that [Lakers owner] Jerry Buss came to my grandparents' house, and I showed him around room by room. I woke up and said, 'Really?' "

Darovic suffers from an advanced case of Lead Singer Disease, always taking over the conversation, perpetually razzing his bandmate, rarely getting called on his own shit. Fortunately, he's funny and genial, so nobody seems to mind. Cuningham confides, "Phil's been the exact same dude ever since I've known him. Fame kind of justified his personality."

Perhaps inevitably, the band starts playing video games. On the tour bus, after a particularly vicious round of Halo, Cunningham and Darovic will sometimes not talk to each other for days. "There's rage that you wouldn't be able to understand," Cunningham says. "I'm a really prideful son of a bitch. I have to work on that." The game tonight is Guitar Hero, so he just watches. "I hate Guitar Hero. I get pissed that you don't play it like a real guitar."

They plug in and are soon rocking out to "Them Bones," by Alice in Chains. When they fluff a section, Darovic hoots, "We suck! Jerry Cantrell is really upset with us right now." He once met Cantrell. "I spilled my soul about how I thought he was amazing, and he didn't give a shit. Nor should he. I never put myself out there like that, so when I do, I get bummed easily."

The song ends; Cunningham edges out Darovic. The game announces his win with a fake newspaper front page. "triumphs in great show," Phil reads. "When have we ever had a headli - Gavin Edwards