

Icky Mettle opens with one of the greatest songs of the ‘90s indie-rock era: On “Web in Front,” the Archers firm up the slack-rock foundation laid down by their peers in Pavement with a lockstep backbeat and taut lattice of overlapping melodies that manage to coax the sweetness out of lines like “All I ever wanted was to be your spine.” That combination of romance and rancor fuels the equally infectious “Plumb Line,” while yielding more volatile results on the raucously anthemic “Wrong.”