Ed Ackerman first conceived Polara as a homemade solo venture; after six years as both a producer and musician at the center of a revitalized Minneapolis scene, he got the urge to cocoon. As it turns out, Polara became a full-fledged band almost immediately, but they retained a grungy, basement-tape aesthetic. So while C'est la Vie, Polara's second album, whirs and blips with enough icy techno wizardry to impress even the most detached electronic-music fan, deep within lurks a living, pulsing rock & roll heart.

Polara are one of the first indie bands to have computerization as second nature. It's easy not to notice that songs like "Transformation" and "Elasticity" are seething with textured noise samples and programmed atmospheric squiggles. In the Polara universe, all means of distortion are equal. Ackerman, who has the soothing, slightly nasal voice of an "Imagine"-era John Lennon, likes muscular pop melodies and loud electric guitars. That he happens to gird them with a phalanx of creaking, wheezing cybersonics only further accentuates Polara's massive Hüsker Dü-like, groove.

If Polara were British, they'd be just another novelty at the crossroads of Oasis and My Bloody Valentine; a cheeky '60s-style pop band with a trendy '90s-style overdub hangover. But as Americans, they're a genuine glimpse at mainstream rock's plausible near future. When Ackerman sings, "Makes me sad/Watching each new fad/Feel like I've been had," in "Other Side," he could be mourning the death of indie rock. Assuming that Ackerman plays his cards right, Polara will live to dance on their own grave. (RS 761)

ALEC FOEGE