No Game, No Plot

The Breeders “Walk It Off” – As far as I am concerned, the gentle rumble of a Kim Deal bass line — whether she’s playing it or not — is one of the most consistently pleasurable things in all of music. It triggers a Pavlovian response in my mind, this immediate feeling of comfort and approval, even when it pops up in subpar songs by unremarkable bands. It’s a warm, thick sound that fills up negative space without drowning it out. In its clumsy sort of grace, it communicates a casual, somewhat self-deprecating attitude that often comes in sharp contrast with the agitated treble it ordinarily accompanies and accommodates. To use a rather uncool example, think of the way the Kim Deal-style bass line in Bush’s “Swallowed” adds a sheepish, humanizing shrug to a song that might have otherwise come across as far too self-absorbed and overbearing. Even when deployed in a tune as intense as “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the Kim Deal-style bass line lends a bit of subtext that serves to counter the foregrounded angst and aggression — it’s basically there to say something along the lines of “Hey, dude, I know. Cool out, we’re having fun here, we’re rocking out.”

Of course, nothing complements a Kim Deal bass line like a Kim Deal vocal. Her voice is even more cool and low key than her music, and can express even the most potent neuroses with an unpretentious grin. She downplays the melancholy in her music so effectively that sometimes it’s easy not to realize that it’s there in the first place. “Walk It Off,” from the first Breeders album in six years, is carried by its rolling bass and Deal’s scratchy coo, and almost entirely conceals its anxieties under a veneer of ragged optimism. Of course, despite a lot of cryptic lyrics, some lines give away the source of her worries: “Nobody’s allowed to fight until the band starts playing tonight,” “Trying to get rid of the friends I’ve got,” “I’ve been waiting for a message all night.” The title and refrain are basically a subtitle for the bass line’s rejoinder: “Talk it down, walk it off.” (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)