Fake Fictions

By all accounts, Liz Phair wore out all the good volcano metaphors long ago. But Fake Fictions would like to respectfully disagree. Their new record, aptly titled after the perpetually erupting Indonesian island, shows that this wellspring of poetic inspiration has not, ahem, blown its load.

Fake Fictions formed in 2004, after guitarist-singer Nick Ammerman and bassist-singer Sarah Ammerman moved to Chicago from Richmond, Virginia, and met drummer Ben Bilow. Their last album, 2006’s Raw Yang (Fresh Produce), was full of pithy hooks and three-minute sugar rushes, but it also felt too polite to be memorable. On Krakatoa, the band seems to have rediscovered the indignity and nervous energy of its inner adolescent, recalling the Red Bull pop of Huggy Bear, early Wedding Present and Superchunk. It opens with a celebration of the state of frustration, on the close-to-a-lawsuit opener “(I Cannot Get Any) Satisfaction.” And on “(Don’t Drink the) Office Coffee,” the band wraps a taut hook around a sentiment any Chicagoan can dig: “Too many banks, not enough buses!”

But most impressive is Fake Fictions’ own production, which belies a merciless ear for detail; no phrase or cymbal crash feels extraneous. They compress the hell out of the drums, push the guitar and bass into the red and let their own bratty vocals tell the story. Special respect goes to Bilow, whose pummeling, brain-dead drumming offsets any pretension given by those fake British accents. Krakatoa does good by its namesake; this is a band exploding with potential.

Fake Fictions play Empty Bottle Friday 18. The Death Set headlines.