Lots of the bands we love are "obscure" when registering the aural knowledge of the general populace, but to those among our little world of "independent music," pretty much everyone knows your Deerhunters, Arcade Fires, Spoons. Even older and not-too-known-at-the-time bands like Black Tambourine and the Pastels get a chance to have their day when the trend-revisitation cycle comes around (see: Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Vivian Girls, Knight School). But for whatever reason, The Homosexuals have flown below even that radar of reconsideration, being passed over in the great post-punk reclamation project of 2002-03 that saw Gang of Four, Public Image Limited, James Chance, Liquid Liquid and others get a second (or third or fourth) look.

I wasn't around then, so I'm not entirely clear on why the Homosexuals were less known when they were contemporary, but i'm even less clear why they continue to be so ignored. Their music, an unmistakable brand of sunny English post-punk, hits on many of common pp touchstones you'd expect, but the end results sounds like almost no one else. The key force is, of course, spiky trebly "Gang of Four" guitar, but unlike those uberserious Marxists, the Homosexuals inject a level of crazed absurdism into every song that makes each one a million times more listenable than any Gang of Four song beyond "Damaged Goods" and "I Found That Essence Rare". Most songs run under two minutes and seem to fall apart under the weight of their own construction, in a way that feels shambolic but not sloppy. The rare songs that last longer do so because they are meant to go somewhere, with each assuring you an unexpected turn along the way justifying your patience.

Doorknobs and I planned to see them this past weekend at the Mercury Lounge, as Cause Co-motion! was originally tabbed as opener, but when Cause-Co fell off the bill our interest diminished, and our subsequent discovering that that band was simply singer Bruno Wizard plus some young dudes our curiosity waned to nearly nothing.

But perhaps our dismissal was unfair, adding us to the ranks of people who have dismissed or ignored Bruno & Co in the entirety of the band's career. Beyond this weekend's nearly-attended show, what originally re-piqued my interest in the band was the release of last year's Love Guns? EP, which was the first new Homosexuals material in nearly twenty-five years. The EP is neither unexpectedly great nor embarrassingly bad--it's mostly meat and two veg postpunk indie fare. However, its feature track, "3AM (Pink Pony)", for which the band even made a video (once available on pitchfork.tv only, now seemingly gone), it's kind of awesome.

Beginning with two simplistic and quiet repeated guitar riffs/lyrics for 2:30 before blossoming into a joyous and bombastic climax doubling as a plea to world togetherness. It's preposterously simple and devastastingly effective; I haven't been able to let go of the idea of the song since the moment I heard it. And not only is this track great, but Bruno sounds young and fresh--there's no way you'd think he was an old geezer twenty years out-tha-game if you were played this track shorn of context. I wish the other four songs on the EP were even close to as good, but honestly, this track is so great as to render the rest redundant.

And here, for you, is "3AM (Pink Pony)" for your own inspection, plus two great faves from the past.