Swearing at Motorists\nThis Flag Signals Goodbye\nSecretly Canadian\nSwearing at Motorists brings you 14 tracks of pure indie rock with their latest release, This Flag Signals Goodbye. Passion, contemplation, brooding and rock fury -- it's all here. Grab your beat-up leather jacket and put on your black sunglasses. It's time to play this album on a stereo system in someone's basement — loudly.\nSwearing at Motorists, on the local Secretly Canadian label, grew out of Dayton in the early '90s. The two piece unit of vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Dave Doughman and drummer Joseph Siwinski brings enough volume and skill to the fold to convince us that a three to five man lineup is merely bulky. This half-hour album crams so many different emotions into 30 minutes that it makes longer albums seem like filler. \nBut, as indie-rocking cool as it is, This Flag Signals Goodbye waves both the highs and lows of the genre at the musical sky. About the mellow songs -- don't listen to them when you are tired. Doughman's voice, deep and smooth, will sway your eyes shut -- It's so brooding and peaceful. When Doughman sets out to do a mellow song, he makes it mellow. He echoes with that mysteriously unfulfilled longing that all good, cool-guy rockers seem to have.\nHis lyrics spin the tales of unrequited love in the true young rocker tradition -- I'm trying, but she doesn't seem to care -- with a welcome conciseness. Doughman also throws in just enough distortion to let you not feel guilty about listening to (however good they may be) a few sad-bastard songs. Highlights of the album are "Borrowed Red Bike," "Room Full of You" and "(It came) Out of Nowhere." The first takes the sad-bastard-distortion technique and plays it for all it's worth. "Room" takes the sweet tones of an acoustic guitar intro and a trumpet solo and gives them the darkness of the lines "I'm all jacked up and I'm driving too fast/And I can't seem to think past the past." "Out of Nowhere" closes the album with a hesitance and depression that will echo after the CD stops spinning. \nThe two-piece lineup (with four sparsely used guest artists) tops off the band's "smaller is better" approach. Swearing at Motorists just make all the extra seem unnecessary. \n
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