Puerto Muerto's Last Stand

The prolific band and couple announce a split weeks after their latest release

By Jennifer Kelly
Published: February 26th, 2010 | 6:21pm

If you sense a darkness in Puerto Muerto’s latest album, Drumming for Pistols (Fire), you’re not imagining things. The Chicago duo has always imbued its punk-charged, cabaret-exotic material with creepiness — but when writing their sixth full-length a year ago, things turned from downbeat to downright dismal.

“Everything was going in the toilet,” says Christa Meyer, the singer, songwriter, and sometime drummer for the band. Not only was larger picture bleak — with the U.S. economy entering freefall, jobs drying up, and homes going into foreclosure — but life at home was no picnic either. As Meyer and her husband (and longtime band mate) Tim Kelley were recording the album, they were also splitting up as a couple.

Meyer and Kelley had been working together since before they were married, with Kelley kicking in the band’s sharp, eruptive punk energy and Meyer bringing strong classical training and a penchant for Kurt Weil–esque theatrics. The pair recorded 13 albums together as Puerto Muerto, starting with 2003’s Elena.

Although, that all came to an end in 2009 as the couple hammered out the songs for their new album. Their usual creative process — Meyer composing melodies and writing lyrics, Kelley shaping and arranging the songs — was fraught with tension. “You can sort of hear our relationship dissolving on the record,” says Meyer. “There is definitely a ‘coming to an end’ sort of feeling. But it was an interesting climate to write in. I think it was definitely good for the creative aspect of our lives. That part of us was really flourishing.”

Indeed, Drumming for Pistols crackles with volatile energy and seethes with contradiction. Elements of Puerto Muerto’s sound — gothic Americana, blues, punk, pop, and cabaret — jostle for prominence. The pieces fit together, but jaggedly, as if they might fly apart at the slightest impact. The title track pulses with staccato anxiety as Meyer’s refrain of “Drumming, oh drumming, oh drumming for pistols / I’m drumming away to the sea,” is paced by battering percussion and nervous guitar. Two tracks later, “Arcadia” swells with pop energy in the chorus, but harbors menace in its verse.

Nearly every song is taut with the conflict between Kelley’s punk/blues simplicity and Meyer’s flowery embellishments. “Tim definitely has a more minimalist and punk rock approach to playing the guitar,” says Meyer. “And I definitely have the more diva-ish theatricality that I bring to the band. I think it works well together. It’s kind of rough around the edges, which I enjoy. It’s definitely not slick.”

Even the shift in vocals from track to track, from Kelley’s growly baritone to Meyer’s well-trained mezzo soprano, causes a slight dissonance. Kelley’s love of blues shines through in the stark simplicity of many of the lyrics and musical structures. And Meyer’s fascination with Weimar cabaret gives the songs a decadent, knowing flair. Yet it is the difference between the two principles that makes the mix so interesting. “It definitely lends a certain mystique to the music, these two forces that work together. Although they wouldn’t typically work together,” says Meyer.

And now, after nearly a decade, these energies are no longer working together. Drumming for Pistols will be the last Puerto Muerto album. Not surprisingly, even its gentlest moments are weighted with regrets. “We are craving a life undone,” sings Meyer in “Goodbye to the End.” It is, perhaps, a succinct description of what makes the album so sad. “I think that in certain times in our lives, we want to crash and burn so we can start all over again. Even though it may be completely self-destructive,” she says. “I felt that Tim was going through something like that — that he was kind of creating this sort of life undone or undoing his own life, maybe so he could rebuild it in a different way. And I guess it sounded very final to me.”

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Puerto Muerto MySpace page

Fire Records