On the surface, Ivory Wire is just former Columbia Records artist Dovetail Joint with new drummer Henry Jansen. But while it sounds cliche to say this, the band seems to have picked up a new attitude as well. I don't know if it was the experience of being chewed up and spit out by the major label machine or what, but frontman Chuck Gladfelter seems to be having a lot more fun this time around, and the results are noticeable, particularly live. Perhaps one of the biggest drawbacks to the Joint was that Chuck always seemed so damned serious, and seeing him jump around and smile onstage, albeit still not nearly as much as lead guitarist Rob Byrne, is refreshing.

The music isn't too far afield of the band's previous incarnation, but with a bit more focus on songwriting hooks. Singalong choruses fly over a mix of hard riffs and big, spacious, U2-esque anthems. This puts them squarely in what seems to be a burdgeoning movement of what I'd call "hard pop" in Chicago, loosely defined as the space between straight-up hard rock, the melodic drive of stoner rock, and maybe the plaintive lyrical core of emo. It's an interesting emerging sound, and I'm curious to see if it can take root.

Singing love songs with a voice very reminiscent of Robin Zander, the sound of this band falls largely in between the likes of Cheap Trick and the Beatles. Some might argue that those two bands actually travelled a lot of common ground, and those people will likely love Regal Standard. Former Extra Very guitarist Larry Schroeder, the leader and main songwriter for this quintet, injects the music with some tricky chords and angular vocal melodies, and the resultant depth belies its almost-sugary pop veneer. In today's parlance, that puts the sound somewhere on the Midwestern jangly pop side of emo, as there's more heft than the former and less crunch than the latter style typically exhibit, and holds up better over repeated listenings than either.

There's a huge buzz about these guys, and on the surface, it's easy to see why. The five piece band features lots of electronics and samples, many played live by the band's drummer, two lead vocalists (one male, one female) and two backup vocalists for some thick harmonies, a twin guitar attack, and a good sense of how to fit it all together. The result is a massively textured sound akin to some of the louder shoegazer bands of the 80s, but with a healthy dose of recent Radiohead mixed in, and maybe even a little post-rock a la Tortoise. On stage, they are accompanied by a multimedia screen mixing various images with three cameras positioned on various microphone stands, and all the band members have considerable rock star poise.

Yet, I can't help feeling a little empty after hearing them. Not quite the empty calories of pop music, but a similar sensation. It's like you peel all the layers of sound, and you find that there isn't a song in the middle of it. Which isn't to say texture as an end itself can't be satisfying, but with this particular group, I want to remember the songs when I leave the building. While I'm starting to get a better grasp the more I see them live, I'm still struggling to find something to hold on to.