Staynless Despite apparent recent efforts in these pages to kill it, heavy music is alive and well in Memphis,. Based on the sheer number of shows by different bands around town, it's fair to assume that there are more groups playing heavy rock (in all its permutations) than any other genre. It seems that hard and fast drumming and loud, distorted guitar are still the most popular repositories for teen angst and frustration. Unfortunately, the music rarely gets any more sophisticated than that. A few bands, though, do strive to bring some refinement and maturity to heavy music -- Pavement and, in their better moments, Metallica, for instance. And on a more modest local level, you could add Staynless to that list. This quartet has been together for two years, steadily honing their act on the underground scene before popping up recently with a reputation as one of the tightest and most intriguing new bands around. The reason for the newfound high profile is the release of the band's first full-length CD, Transistor Theory And Circuits Made Simple, recorded last year in Chicago by Steve Albini. To look at them, one wouldn't peg Staynless -- made up of guitarists Chris Wark and Nico Jordan, bassist Tony Nixon, and drummer Daniel Farris -- as a heavy band. In a welcome departure from rock-and-roll cliches, the quartet are clean-cut young men who look more like purveyors of college frat rock than the brooding brand of metal they do, in fact, push. And don't doubt that they push it aggressively. The band is indeed super-tight, a quality that leaps out when they all riff together or are in one of their frequent dynamic shifts. Staynless' sterling musicianship is in service of complex compositions that have a strong ambient, electronic bent to them, like a more aggressive Radiohead. This challenging music is made even more so by the band's abstract and frequently shouted lyrics. It's a coin toss, but I decided that this aspect was unnecessarily annoying. It's a minor quibble, however, with a band that packs a powerful and surprisingly emotional punch. -- Mark Jordan