The Cinema Eye

First, the ferocity. Unruly. Unyielding. Knifelike guitars scraping bare skin, desperate wails punctuating the damage. Then the syrup, saccharine. An urgent, insistent electronic hiss. Sugary whispers apologizing for before. At once they are cynical and sincere, fresh-faced and jaded, confused and sure-footed.

The Cinema Eye is a band of contradiction.

Consider how they got here in the first place. Meant to be an electronic side-project to nothing in particular, singer/bass keyboardist Mollie Wells, lead keyboardist Carlos Nunez and original guitarist Conrad Vollmer started the Cinema Eye in early 2002 on a workaday whim. Boredom. They stumbled onto a drummer, ex-member Jason Laveris, and then onto a suddenly rock-and-roll, razor-edged sound that was only peppered with the electronic intentions. It was all kind of an accident.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, came their forthcoming full-length “Some Nerve.” Ok, so maybe it wasn’t out of nowhere, exactly. But for a band that had been previously touted as the newest in a roster of new-wave influenced acts, “Some Nerve” captures something so visceral, so immediate, so urgent and unapologetically rock-and-roll that the result is mystifying even to the band.

Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe it was a subconsciously calculated move, bred by early years spent listening to everything from Sleater-Kinney to Queen to Missing Persons. Maybe it was a desire to take both whirring electronic sounds and classically rock riffs out of their context and place them into something distinctive, something foreign. Paul Rentler’s slice-you-up style slammed against Carlos Nunez’s sheathed keys. David Fowler’s systematic, almost mechanical, timing coupled with a rumbling, growling bass. Mollie Wells’ anger, empathy and fear laid out in sheets of luscious vocals, reminiscent of the sugary desperation found in Corin Tucker or Siouxsie Sioux. If “A Complete Arsenal” started the death-knell, “Some Nerve” is lamenting the casualties.

The Cinema Eye may thrive on contradiction, on the purity of not knowing exactly how they ended up on this square, on the love of mixing the unexpected with the tried and true, but they certainly don’t waver on their desire to push it one step further than it probably needs to go. To bend the rules just enough to make the unsuspecting cock their heads. To keep getting in the van, on the road, in the studio to open their wrists and let everyone see what they’ve done. They know the beauty in seizing the moment -- which is precisely why they’re still here.