When the members of hard-touring Kent, Ohio, band The Party of Helicopters went their separate ways in the fall of 2004 -- shortly after the post-hardcore group's major-label debut -- a void opened in Northeast Ohio's music scene and the world lost a difficult to classify but infinitely dazzling band. The POH were one of a string of Kent indie acts that garnered acclaim from insiders and critics across the country over the last decade, but that ultimately flew just below the overall national radar.

But now, two former members of the POH and two other Kent music veterans have joined up to form Beaten Awake (Among them all, the new band's members have played in at least six Kent-based bands over the last 10 years.). If "Let's Get Simplified," the group's debut album, is any indication, this might be the Kent band that finally breaks fully into the big time.

They certainly deserve it. Far from an ensemble derivation of previous projects by Beaten Awake members, "Let's Get Simplified" draws on the strengths of other Kent bands while forging something wholly new. The album is an arresting, alt-country infused odyssey with a solid underbelly of indie rock and an all-around ambient atmosphere. Its twelve tracks are complex but catchy: at turns plaintive and up-tempo, poignant and gently self-effacing. The intricate drum-bass-guitar-voice interplay that elevated the POH far above typical wall-of-noise metal bands is present, as are the melodic stirrings of The Six Parts Seven, a still-active Kent instrumental ensemble whose evocative music often appears between segments of "All Things Considered" and whose frontman, Allen Karpinski, plays guitar and bass for Beaten Awake.

The assured intricacy of the band's music certainly owes much to the multi-instrumentalist nature of its lineup. Karpinski is the only member with but two roles. The others -- Ryan Brannon, Jon Finley and Joel McAdams -- all take turns at the drums. Finley and McAdams split time at the microphone, and they and Brannon each take on at least two other instruments.

As much for their diversity as for their quality, four songs in particular stand out on this excellent album (co-produced by Patrick Carney of The Black Keys and released by Audio Eagle, an Akron-based spinoff of former Keys label Fat Possum Records that Carney helped create). The opener, "Browns Town," features quick but gentle guitar plucking and lullaby-like lyrics. "Ghost Bought a Bicycle" is a swaying, wistful ode to the quixotic quest of replacing an unattainable love with what's immediate, available and ultimately disappointing; it rides a gentle raft of finger-picking and feedback to a subdued and melancholy crescendo. "A&E" is an entrancing chunk of undulating blues-rock, but more lush and less jagged than that cranked out by many garage-bands-du-jour; this and some of the other soulful, static-laced numbers on "Let's Get Simplified" may remind listeners of My Morning Jacket's "Z," though Beaten Awake's music is by far more nuanced and sophisticated. Finally, "Tree of Woe" is a funereal lament that builds layer upon layer of somber introspection, both lyrically and musically; drumbeats and bass notes resound like panicked heartbeats, while slices of feedback echo like lonely gusts of wind.

Beaten Awake's songs reflect a Rust-Belt-indie-rock-meets-Raymond-Carver sensibility, with their discussion of desperate phone calls, love gone elsewhere, hard drinking and lonesome vomiting. But the band's lyrics never wallow in themselves, just as the lush instrumentation always succeeds in also sounding strikingly sparse.

It's a difficult feat to pull off, but Beaten Awake does it consistently on this shimmering debut. This album is the aural equivalent of a campfire in a dark, dense Midwestern woods: inexplicably simple in all its complexity, enormous in its subdued brilliance. These are the kinds of songs you huddle around on interminable nights, flask in hand, gulping as much warmth as possible to ward off the frigid void just beyond your meager little clearing.
Tim Bugansky.