People new to Cartoon Bar Fight might expect—based on the name—a lighthearted or even goofy punk-rock band. The San Jose quintet is actually an eerie, experimental indie-folk outfit with heavy, cerebral lyrics.

The members are well aware of the confusion their name creates; they just like subverting expectations. “When you hear the music, it’s a surprise,” says guitarist and lead vocalist Kendall Sallay. “We like it because it doesn’t match up with the music.”

Sallay describes the band’s recently released debut album, Reincarnate, as a “concept album about death,” so it’s no surprise that they venture in an unexpected direction. Rather than making Reincarnate depressing or macabre, they gave it a more inquisitive bent. The subjects range from death in a very literal sense, as on “Hymn,” to death in the figurative sense—”Fox and Grapes” is about the death of a relationship.

“It’s not negative,” Sallay asserts. “It’s something that everyone can relate to.”

This isn’t to say that there aren’t depressing songs on the album. “Fox and Grapes” adopts the point of view of the person who was dumped in a relationship. But the individual songs vary in topic, perspective and tone. Some, like the title track, take a position that death isn’t altogether a bad thing.

“It’s fascinating, the concept of death as reincarnation—like the transfer of energy from your body when you die,” Sallay muses. “It becomes something else—in the sense you never really die.”

Before Reincarnate, Cartoon Bar Fight released the EP Tell All the Children, which is a more straightforward, mellow indie-folk effort, somewhere between Feist and the Decembrists. Since then, other than founding members Sallay and keyboardist Dirk Milotz, the whole band has changed. About a year ago, Joel Zelaya joined on guitar and Max Rogers joined on bass. Just two months ago, Jerald Bittle joined on drums.

Their music has veered a bit from folk to experimental soundscapes. They also play heavier rock sections than before, while still retaining plenty of softer, quieter moments.

“We were writing music based on the instrumentation that was available to us at the time,” Sallay explains. “The sound was never as full as we wanted. It was more intimate. It’s fun to play an intimate little acoustic place, but we wanted to be able to put on a solid rock show.”

Between the contributions of the new members, and the process of working on all the material for Reincarnate, Sallay and Milotz, who started the band in 2007, believe that they are just now coming into their own.

Even still, they are quick to point out that part of coming into their own also includes the flexibility to change. They already have new ideas for what their next project will be—a concept album about space, covering such topics as solitude and mystery of the unknown. Musically, they’d like it to be more synth-driven and to actually sound like space. “We don’t want to be limited to one thing. It’s ongoing. We just want to play whatever kind of music we like,” Sallay says.

The idea for the space concept album came to them, in part, from the title track from Reincarnate, the last song on the album. It has a more futuristic, synth-driven sound and moves lyrically into the unknown—reincarnation. The song, they hope, will serve as a bridge between the albums.

Their fascination for concept albums didn’t just begin with Reincarnate. The songs on Tell All the Children revolve around the theme of childhood and disillusionment, which gets expressed in ways such as disenchantment with fairy tales and religious beliefs.

“When I listen to an album, I like the feeling that there was a greater vision than the individual tracks,” Sallay says. “I like being able to get inside an artist’s head and think that these thoughts must have been something that was picking their brain for years, so they wrote this whole album,” Sallay says.

The three albums even have a nice flow to them—disillusionment with childhood fantasies, facing the reality of death and then exploring the unknowns of the universe. Only question is: What comes after an album about space?

For five years, Cartoon Bar Fight has gone through  lineup changes, with only two of the founding members left: Kendall Sallay and Dirk Milotz. Despite the instability, they’ve mastered a few songs along the way. Following their release of their debut EP, Tell All The Children, almost exactly last year to date ( Nov. 18th), the San Jose band presents a full album showcasing songs they have long waited to present.

Beautiful, haunting melodies create a surreal, peaceful mood on CBF’s Reincarnate. Starting fresh after a previous life seems to be the theme for CBF, from their original formation to now. In a sense they have reincarnated themselves in the process of releasing this album.

The album starts with an eerie organ-like movement, “A Beautiful Death” (the same title as the album artwork by Terry Fan), and into “Dear Victoria,” a solemn song almost styled as a shanty. “Circus” continues in the same vein with a cry for change as the ending chant repeats the lyrics “I sleep too often, when will I awake?” and  “I know I’ve fallen away.”

The title track, “Reincarnate,” helps close the album with much more hopeful lyrics for life and change as heard in the chorus, “in life and death, disappear, change your shape, reappear, reincarnate” before the final song “A Beautiful Life.”

The album really shows a much darker and reflective side of CBF not present in Tell All The Children, with more musical development, instrumentation depth and richness to their songs.

Highlight Tracks: The Marquee, Reincarnate, The Kingdom Of

An organization calling itself Make a Scene San Jose recently formed with the intention of promoting an all-ages music scene in San Jose.

The idea behind the group is to get bands and music fans to work together more for the overall benefit of everybody in San Jose that loves live music. Though, they are still working out the details of how they want to do that, they are starting with the release of a free compilation of San Jose bands.

The compilation features 10 San Jose bands, providing a nice reference point for people unfamiliar with the diverse talent that San Jose has to offer. Some of the bands on the compilation include Curious Quail, San Francesca, the Trims and Corpus Callosum.

“The compilation we put together is a quick resource we can point people to if they’re in the dark about what goes on here musically, and hopefully it will influence them to come out with us to see some of these bands play live,” says Kendall Sallay, who plays in Cartoon Bar Fight and is a member of Make a Scene San Jose. Sallay is one of several other local musicians that are members of the group. There is no established leader.

To help bring more people to the all-ages shows already being booked in San Jose, “Make a Scene San Jose” lists several upcoming all-ages shows on its Facebook page. They hope for starters to get more bands to support each other by passing out flyers for each other’s shows, promoting each other online and making an effort to go to more shows here in San Jose. View the page HERE.

Daydream Nation, a series of free shows at San Pedro Square Market was back for its third installment Saturday. The show featured local bands Cartoon Bar Fight, Curious Quail, Shuteye Unison and ColorScout.

The show was also served as the CD Release Party for Curious Quail’s debut album, .:Instant Gratification:.

Photos by Jessica Shirley-Donnelly, JRSD Photography for MetroActive.

Dirk Milotz of Cartoon Bar Fight

Joel Zelaya's expanding pedalboard of Cartoon Bar Fight

Joel Zelaya of Cartoon Bar Fight

Michael Shumway, drummer for Cartoon Bar Fight

San Francesca has undergone a lot of changes lately. First there was that whole name switch—remember when they were called Le Verita? Now they’ve added a drummer to their lineup, which has evolved their sound.

They used to be a synth-pop band with a dark indie rock edge. They couldn’t decide if they were a dance or rock band, just like early New Order. Well, the new San Francesca are not a dance band, not that it makes them any easier to classify.

They bring their new album, We Live In Public, to X Bar this Saturday, showcasing their matured sound. With a drummer, the synth-pop elements have been tempered significantly, exposing some of their less obvious influences like Sigur Rós and other slow burning, experimental post-rock bands. Yet they still mix in some straight-forward pop sounds and heart-felt indie rock influences—bands like the National come to mind.

The production on the new record is fuller than any prior recording. The first few tracks start out darker and heavier with Harrison Russell’s vocals bathed in distortion, giving it an eerie distance. Deeper in, the album mellows out a bit. There’s even a few pretty synth ballads; played with drums, of course.

Headlining the show is East Bay metal-string band Judgment Day, who are truly unlike any other band out there. They play instrumental heavy metal, but without guitars. The trio includes a cellist, a violinist and drummer. The stringed-instruments are run through a distortion pedal and the drums are what you might expect from a metal band.

Riffing out on chamber instruments isn’t as weird as it may sound. In fact, it sounds a lot closer to standard metal than you’d expect. Still the differences are noticeable. The tone and timber of the instruments are just off enough to grab your attention. And when they slide up and down on their fretless stringed instruments, let’s just say that’s outside of Kirk Hammett abilities. The end result lands a little closer to math rock than Metallica.

Also on the bill are two lighter, easier-to-digest bands, both steeped in folk. LA’s “Hello, the Future” is a weird one-woman geeky folk act, while Cartoon Bar Fight are a local upbeat indie-folk outfit. The show will open with a dark short horror film called Green by local filmmaker Jonathan Sontag, about fungus-infected undead insects feeding on people’s blood.

Judgment Day and San Francesca play Saturday, July 7 at X Bar in Cupertino, 8pm; $8.