Local music: Minor Surgery

The second album from Bloomington-based five-piece husband&wife, 2006's Operation: Surgery shows the benefits of the band's experience in touring and gigging (not to mention professional-quality production), but it also reveals that h&w has a fair distance left to go before it stands a chance of rocking the foundations of Pitchfork -- or whatever the indie measure for "the big time" is nowadays. \nAkin to Death Cab For Cutie, h&w offers up sensitive, melancholy guitar-rock that is very much the soundtrack to standing outside your ex significant other's house, wearing a hoodie and sobbing (in an angst-y way, that is, rather than a stalker-y way). The problem, though, is that Operation so closely and consistently reproduces this feeling that it becomes about as enjoyable. For all its lovely melodic passages -- and there are plenty -- the album suffers from an overwhelming drabness. Its leaden pace and lack of compelling hooks lead it to shuffle past the listener without ever providing the connection necessary to achieve emotional catharsis. And like pre-Transatlanticism Death Cab, the differences between many of the tracks are so subtle that they create the feeling of half the album merely being one long song (but without the aforementioned hooks or Death Cab frontman Ben Gibbard's vibrant lyrical imagery).\nThus, whenever something peeks out of the uniform murk, it becomes a highlight of the album. Such moments include the bursts of percussive energy in "Battlecab Dramatica," "Did I Not Tell You" and "The Direction We Never Went" -- the first being the most affective thanks to its combination of this much-needed jolt with a sweet guitar tune and sing-along group vocals. However, the single finest moment on Operation is "You Remain Unloved," a stripped-down combination of acoustic guitar, dual-vocal harmony, vivid lyrics and a chorus that the listener gets a chance to grasp before the song is over.\nSuch moments show plenty of talent, and the musicianship is lovely -- now all husband&wife needs to do is compose songs that catch and hold their listeners' attention.