Instrumental weapon

One of the most gratifying, semi-unspoken parts about independent music is discovering bands that few people among the radio-listening public can identify and rolling those obscure musicians' names into our vernacular like a special, indie-rock secret language. The payoff, of course, is mainstream rock fans' constant chagrin, but even casual music lovers can appreciate the special membership that goes along with the ownership of a specific, if MySpace-fabricated, scene.

That's how Matthew Frank sees it anyway. The 20-year-old guitarist/co-founder of Loose Lips Sink Ships, a year-old instrumental rock band based in DeKalb and St. Charles, says he could sit around all day trading band names like little kids swap baseball cards. What do they get out of it? As an indie-rock devotee: a constantly growing sea of listening material. As a band member: a community of road warriors with which to make friends and share stages. And as a pre-drinking-age rock nerd: well, the satisfaction of repeating names twice to people who aren't as precisely familiar with the scene.

Providing couches for touring indie rockers is a semi-frequent activity for Frank and the band, which includes guitarist Conor Mackey, bassist Steve Marek and drummer Jacob Boulay. Now that Loose Lips Sink Ships (good luck saying it five times fast) plans to release its debut album, "Puptent," at The House Cafe tonight, Frank hopes they can slip into the couch-sharing cycle as well.

The biggest challenge thus far has been, ironically enough, finding enough like-minded bands to share their shows. Frank maintains that "there are a lot cool bands out there; you just need to find them," but bands spewing terms like math rock aren't necessarily oozing out of the suburbs. Besides, pigeonholing tends to go with instrumental rock like Pete Wentz fits into tight jeans.

A quick note about the term "math rock," by the by: Frank doesn't approve of it where Loose Lips are concerned. Nor does he think post-rock adequately describes bands like Pelican or Godspeed You Black Emperor, neither of which Loose Lips shares influences with, despite these bands' similar no-vocals rule.

"I don't think we identify as a band with any of those bands," Frank says.

Then again, influences run the gamut in Loose Lips, whose members come from past projects as diverse as metal, screamo and jam bands. Interestingly enough, it works really well, and "Puptent" ends up sounding like a living breathing montage of every geek-rock band these young musicians have idolized, mimicked or influenced themselves. "Linear Musical Thought," the first track on the album, starts out sounding like something out of a 1950s soundtrack from a Cary Grant picture and seconds later busts down the doors a la "This is Spinal Tap." Mid-song breaks and gaps fill in for stereotypical time changes, making the music all the more palatable and smartly prolific. By the end, you're searching for a plot somewhere in the guitars' heady folds.

It wasn't necessarily pre-meditated to sound like this. Whereas Frank wrote much of the band's minimalist EP last year on an acoustic guitar, the whole band (with the exception of Boulay, who is the fifth of his kind in Loose Lips' ever-frustrating quest to find a drummer) contributed their parts. There's really no set formula at all, Frank says. That is, except for the vocals. The decision to go sans-singer was made at the very beginning. "It's as simple as none of us can sing very well," he says, laughing. "I don't have a very audience-friendly voice."

Loose Lips started out of an array of inactive and defunct bands from a group of kids who went to St. Charles East High School together but weren't necessarily friends. Frank and Marek developed a couple of bands together (a metal band called Threshold Mothers Project and an experimental project called XYU), but it wasn't until Frank saw Mackey at a Sigur Ros concert that those two found enough common ground to be in a band together. The drummer dilemma is a bigger issue, but as far as Saturday's show is concerned, the lineup is set in stone.

Frank is quite familiar with the pitfalls and stereotypes involved with crafting instrumental rock, not to mention the uphill climb that is convincing pop-punk fans that lyrics aren't always necessary. (Frank says someone came up to him after a show not long ago to ask whether their vocalist was sick.) It's hard not to sound repetitive, to keep fans interested, to separate yourself from similar-sounding bands while staying close enough to share their stages and reach their like-minded fans.

But Frank has a plan. First off, don't expect Loose Lips to limit the jam-band and atmospheric tones that naturally come from a diverse group of band mates. Second, he's already begun writing a second album, sliding in synths and spare instruments to ensure no duplication. Third (and this is Loose Lips' secret weapon), they're moving forward without expectations but with the hope that a group of music junkies might include Loose Lips Sink Ships on their own list of obscure up-and-comers.

"We don't really know what's going to happen," he says. "We don't even know what's going to happen this weekend."

Upcoming Shows

May 9: 8 p.m., The House Café, DeKalb

Tickets: $6 at the door

Fact Box:

Loose Lips Sink Ships

Town: St. Charles, DeKalb

Sound: Explosions in the Sky meets early Russian Circles