"It was a post-industrial time and there were a lot of amazing bands. The idea was that the bar had to be set really high...you had to do something really special if you were in a band."

Here are some things that don't happen very often: A lunar eclipse. Bi-partisan support of a bill in Congress. The birth of a white buffalo. Daniel Day-Lewis saying "yes" to a script. The Cubs playing in the World Series.

Add to this list of improbables "a young rock band releasing a debut album that's so good, it practically redefines popular music." There are plenty of talented bands out there, sure, but few have created anything as wildly inventive and musically rich as John Kill and the Microscopic Lullaby, the premiere opus by Everthus the Deadbeats, a quintet hailing from Muncie, Ind. Ever heard an album that seems to contain the best parts of all your favorite bands? That's what you might think during your first couple of listens to John Kill, a brilliant pastiche of colorful, psychedelic, always-surprising variations on pop music's most potent elements. These include vibrantly strong vocals (by both male and female singers), beautiful melodies that race by at breakneck speed, off-kilter arrangements that never fail to impress and a peerless production that gives everything an added edge.

Everthus the Deadbeats (vocalist/multi-instrumentalist John Muylle, guitarist/vocalist Allen Bannister, vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Lisa Berlin, bassist Benny and drummer Dan Fahrner) convey the impression that they've listened to and thoroughly absorbed the finest records by rock innovators through the years like XTC, Love, The Beatles, Roxy Music, Talking Heads, Sparks and many more, but have plenty of ideas of their own to deflect the notion of any singular influence. What comes through in their work is a passionate love of pop music, an aversion to the ordinary, and a high level of youthful exuberance. Their album is a start-to-finish delight that never wavers in quality—no mean feat these days. In fact, John Kill makes the case for albums-as-art better than just about any release of the last few years. It's meant to be experienced, to immerse yourself in, the way the rock classics of yesteryear did. You can't take one or two tracks from this masterwork and get the full impact. You've got to savor every exemplary detail (preferably through headphones). And if you do that, the disc rewards you with a treasure trove of aural wonders.

"When the record started out, it was a concept album loosely based on a character named John Kill," said affable drummer Dan Fahrner when asked how this groundbreaking platter was conceived. "It was supposed to be based on our singer. But then the rest of us started twisting and turning it and changing it into something else. Ultimately, it became sort of the sum of all our quirky, strange characters."

More than many bands, the sound of ETD does seem to reflect the input of all five members. So much is going on, even in a short song, that it's hard to even imagine how a typical recording session goes. Does one person have final say on the direction a song takes, or does everyone typically speak up?

"It can go either way; depends on who wrote the song," said Fahrner. "Every song is written in a different way. Sometimes when you're changing things around, if someone has a vivid idea, they bring that to the table and we'll try and flesh it out. John comes up with intricate stuff a lot; he's really special. He's heavily influenced by all the quirky groups of the '60s, like the Kinks, The Animals, The Zombies and a lot of others."

Fahrner also mentioned the Electric Light Orchestra as a touchstone for some of the album's vocal sounds. Without a doubt, the brilliance of the vocals, in both the leads and the harmonies, is part of what makes John Kill a stunner.

"The vocal stuff is super important; we form almost everything around it," Fahrner said. "One artist I love is David Byrne. A lot of his stuff transcends time and space. He does a lot of strange vocal calls...and a lot of times, he doesn't use regular words at all."

There's very little that's "regular" about anything ETD does. What's so exhilarating on their album are the sonic hooks that adorn every song -- sometimes even hooks within hooks. The disc is like a musical jewelry store; there's something shiny or sparkling no matter where you look. Good examples of this include the hypnotic background chant that emerges from the soundscape of acoustic guitars, shakers and retro keyboards on "Trablin True Timbe" (a wacky riff on "traveling through time"), and the breathtakingly fine switcheroo in "Set My Demons Free" from a male voice singing about finding "a woman twice as crazy as me," to the pleasing voice of Lisa Berlin singing about the need to find a "soft hands daddy/ Twice as lonely as me." It's both an unusual duet and a finger-snapping pop truffle; the arrangement is eccentric yet somehow perfect.

It's worth mentioning here just how crucial Berlin's role in the band is. A classically trained musician, Berlin lends bouncy keyboards, classical guitar and her delightful vocals to the Everthus sound. Without her, they'd be a coolly clever bunch of mischievous collegiate art rock dudes. With her, the band frequently achieves a level of utter transcendence, blending male and female sensibilities into a thrilling, skin and psyche-caressing musical balm. There's the textural grace of "Twenty Three," one of the longer songs here, and the utterly sublime radiance of "Sweetie," one of the shortest at barely 90 seconds. On this track, Berlin engages in a lovely call-and-response with an oddly background-placed male voice. "Here is a box for all your troubles/ Pack ‘em up, ship ‘em out to outer space," she sings melodiously, as her detached "partner" responds with "What kind of stamps do I use?" This back-and-forth unexpectedly segues into a flurry of gorgeous harmonies and mellow keyboard tones that makes for one of the most stirring moments on a recording this year. There's something going on in these songs, something we haven't heard for awhile. It's an unusual combination of intelligence, passion and wit that nudges the boundaries of popular music into a rarified realm of some sort. Neither overly intellectual nor intentionally commercial, the music here is simply the inspired craftsmanship of young artists with sharp musical instincts. Fahrner said some of that was the influence of the thriving music scene around Ball State University when the band members first came together.

"There was an influx of amazing music in Muncie during a five-year period," he explained. "It was a post-industrial time and there were a lot of amazing bands. The idea was that the bar had to be set really high...you had to do something really special if you were in a band."

Three of the members got things off the ground in 2004 (Fahrner, Bannister and Benny), initially playing mostly instrumentals at house parties. Muylle came along and liked the sound, according to Fahrner, but "thought we needed more. He felt like he could add something." That he did: his own skewed and inventive approach to songwriting, and the diverse talents of Berlin, his friend. There was a bit of a transitional break, then the fivesome got serious.

"We moved in together and it strengthened the core of what we were doing...how weird and idiotic we all are. We had one central location where we wrote this album, and we went to school together when we were working. But our potential was bigger than our surroundings."

Talk about an understatement. What ETD began assembling during their late-night recording sessions clearly needed to be widely heard and performed -- no way could a small coterie of pals give them the perspective they needed on their music. By hard work and sometimes by accident, the band started coming up with highly original demos. Fahrner told the story of how one of Muylle's tunes, called "First Time Again," evolved during the recording process.

"Our lead singer, John, wrote this love at first sight story. The lyric goes ‘I found her in a film about a lunatic'; it was about the actress playing that role in this film we saw. So he met her after the film, and they were swept up in something and fell madly in love. John felt so passionately about that moment that he tried to write a song about it. It was originally kind of a glam rock thing. Then I got my hands on it and added way too much crap; I was having fun. But I made it a completely different kind of song, without quite learning how to play it properly. It was a big learning experience, learning when to subtract something and not add so much. When we went back to fix it, it ended up changing drastically again."

The resulting tune sounds like a more sincere version of something Sparks might do, with a hint of Roxy Music. And it reveals that the group is willing to mess with their material, always a good thing.

"You want to be open to experimentation in the studio," said Fahrner. "You should be open and not be too focused on what you think something should sound like...There wasn't anything we recorded that we didn't use in some way."

The fledgling Indiana band needed a name, of course. Befitting a band more than tuned in to the wider pop culture universe, they got it from the Coen Brothers.

"One night we were watching The Big Lebowski, and there's a scene early in the movie where the character of The Dude comes home and...utters that line (‘Everthus the deadbeats'). We'd been playing around trying to find a name, and we liked the word ‘deadbeats.' We were surrounded by a lot of idiots at that point in our lives." Fahrner laughed. "Plus we liked the Shakespeare reference."

No deadbeats themselves, needless to say, the quintet have been gigging steadily over the last year or two, with their current tour the biggest one yet. Word is spreading, especially in the Midwest, that ETD are a band worth your attention.

"Response-wise, this tour has increased 100% over the last tour," said Fahrner. "But we're still doing it on a very small scale. I love visiting different cities; it's fun to travel and play for different crowds."

And his goal for the near future? "I would love to just tour full time and play my ass off."

Everthus the Deadbeats have made more than a great start toward achieving that goal. They came into this pop thing with more imagination and sheer ability than the majority of their fellow newbies; they craft songs like a jeweler polishes diamonds and they've made one of the most thoroughly enjoyable debut albums not just of the year, but really, ever. It's ever-listenable, ever-amazing and, well, everthus your musical life will be enhanced by supporting these five crazy kids. Forget the awkward puns, though, just get their CD and go see them play. This is one rare occurrence you don't want to miss: the arrival of a luminous new pop entity in a world that needs them more than they probably know. | Kevin Renick

Catch Everthus the Deadbeats on their current tour:
June 20 - Athens, GA
June 21 - Nashville, TN
June 22 - Memphis, TN
June 23 - Little Rock, AR
June 24 - St. Louis, MO: Vintage Vinyl in-store at 5 p.m.; concert at The Bluebird with The Trachtenburg Family 9 p.m.
June 25 - Des Moines, IA
June 26 - Kansas City, MO
June 27 - Madison, WI
June 28 - Chicago, IL
July 12 - Louisville, KY: Annual Lebowski Fest and In-store at Ear X-tacy Record Store

More info: www.everthusthedeadbeats.com

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