Polvo

Both pioneers and underground heroes of Chapel Hill's mid-'90s guitar revolution, Polvo practically reinvented the instrument for devoted Indie rock musicians. Tuning strings flappy and low, they created both astonishingly beautiful and sometimes demonically sinister Middle Eastern flavored chords and harmonies that barely resembled the traditional sounds of the instrument. No slouches rhythmically, bass and drums drove the music in numerous directions during the course of a single song, lurching mathematically through verses and hydroplaning through noisy, technicolor choruses on the fly. In their relatively short career, Polvo modified the catchy and accessible sound and approach of their debut Cor-Crane Secret into a sometimes jammy Post-Rock Jacob's Ladder of Art Rock, beginning with their second album: Today's Active Lifestyles. Though never matching the consistency of Cor-Crane, subsequent albums still offered great bits of heartfelt melancholia like Exploded Drawing's "High-Wire Moves" and twisted, jammy power of This Eclipse's "Bat Radar."