The Elected: "Go For The Throat"

For most of their tenure, Rilo Kiley was considered Jenny Lewis’s band: she was the charismatic frontwoman, the principle songwriter, the main draw. But, as someone who prefers the band’s work to Lewis’s solo career, I’d argue it was her collaboration with guitarist/longtime boyfriend Blake Sennett that infused the band with its unique sound. The push and pull between Lewis’s penchant for torchy story-songs and Sennett’s for whispery indie rock was responsible for both of their best work.

Their breakup around the time of More Adventurous (2004), however, injured the band beyond repair. Though they limped through 2007’s Under the Blacklight, it was clearly time to move on. While Sennett is the less successful of the two, he’s not done too shabbily, releasing two well-received albums as the Elected and subsequently passing the rock star test by dating Winona Ryder (eventually cast aside like so many Dave Pirners and Ryan Adamses before him). After Blacklight Sennett was unsure if he would return to music, though an extended hiatus proved to be all he needed. The forthcoming Bury Me in My Rings is an almost entirely individual effort, and initial singles suggest it picks up where Rilo Kiley’s final, ’70s-influenced record left off, this time with less fluff and more raw emotion.

His newest track is “Go For The Throat,” a bouncy California tune concealing some pretty cutting lyrics under that beach-burned melody. It’s difficult to ignore the impressive number of Elected songs that are maybe, probably, definitely about Jenny Lewis—but how much must it suck to break up with your long-term girlfriend only to have her new love (indie-folk coattail-rider Johnathan Rice) traveling along on one final, label-mandated tour?

It must suck a lot, and Sennett’s milked that dysfunctional-band angle much like one of his obvious idols: Lindsey Buckingham. Jenny Lewis may not be a witch like Stevie, but she doesn’t come off too well in “Go For The Throat,” which doesn’t bother to hide its disdain or its subject matter. While a chorus of “You think you’re so cool / You think you’re so hot / You’ve got the go for the throat eyes” is ambiguous enough, asides like “Now you’re on Late Night” pretty much seal the deal. Whether he’s really spitting bile or just messing with us, Sennett really knows how engage an audience with that wounded, jilted persona.

But before you roll your eyes at this indie-pop melodrama, know that “Go For The Throat” is a great slice of sly, crazy-catchy pop music. Sennett layers seriously ’70s harmonies over elastic bass on the driving verses and chorus, tossing in a few chilled-out campfire interludes to let us catch our breath. And despite an initially sour sentiment, Sennett’s gift for songwriting has always seemed to lie in exposing the heart beneath our often ugly emotions. Though “Go For The Throat” mostly eschews warm feelings (“Now that you’ve trampled / All of the good times”), it turns nostalgic by the end: “I know that somewhere / You’ve got that inside / You’re still filled with that light.”

Even if you’re not as pathetically intrigued as I am by the romantic drama of indie rockers, “Go For The Throat” offers something we can all relate to. And while Sennett continues to mine his emotional past, it’s heartening to hear him moving forward, musically, with abandon.