Indie rock has its idealized characters like any other sub-culture, and its features are familiar: usually male; eschews the middle ground and its promise of monetary stability or the possibility of pseudo-celebrity status; privileges the exploratory and “original” above retreads of anything but something that was once considered exploratory and “original”; tours suburban rec. centers tirelessly in an effort to connect with as many fans from little townships as possible; sleeps on the floors and couches of fans six months out of every year; vegetarian, preferably vegan; hates Clear Channel, as if having had the opportunity to be on it; DIY aesthetic; never, ever compromises, even in the face of critical or commercial adversity or even an apparent lack of talent; and above all, remains independent by shunning the culture of the Major Label Deal (as if “lay down all hope you that go in by me” is etched into stone above the entrance to EMI’s corporate headquarters). If we were to gauge Joan of Arc by this caricature, the hyper-MacKaye, we should fucking love Tim Kinsella, who is or has been a part of no less than five bands, including Joan of Arc, Make Believe, Friend/Enemy, Cap n’ Jazz, Owls and varied solo work, and who tours ceaselessly to little critical or financial reward, continues to write his writerly, contradictory lyrics (“she made her mind / change her mind all the time” from “Miss Cat Piss and Peppermint”) and is a front man despite having to sing in an off-kilter voice.

And it can’t be easy measuring up. Where hip-hop demands its mainstream archetypes shill and spend in an endlessly hedonistic orgy of product accumulation in the name of status, indie rock often romanticizes the self-imposed poverty of living four-to-a-van and eating gas station Ramen noodles for months on end. Where the former employs the imagery of excess and addition, the latter is marked more by what it willingly lacks, what it gives up in order to more fully give itself to the singular pursuit of the Music, man. Yeah, it’s probably a liberal guilt complex, but this is beside the point. No one criticizes Superman for being a two-dimensional character rife with contradictions, because expecting otherwise of him is what doesn’t make sense. Now, eleven years after Cap n’ Jazz broke up, to criticize Kinsella for being pretentious seems an argument borne along in the same vein: almost every music critic occasionally speaks in a language that reinforces the notion of this tragic indie figure, consequently reinforcing the qualities Kinsella typifies even while repeatedly tearing him down for pretension. For me it’s hypocritical, but for Kinsella it’s gotta be a complete mindfuck.

If it’s “all about the music” (a notion I’m sure many can come together on), then Joan of Arc always gets the butt end of a double standard: the hanging of the Kinsella effigy, adorable indie scarf and all. Sure, the he-said she-said of the whole thing is demoralizing for everyone involved, critic and musician alike, but is useful to demonstrate how Joan of Arc is the rarity of a band where everybody from Kinsella to his detractors, for some reason, take things personally. It truly is something to see someone take Kinsella’s lyrical pose as a personal insult to their sensibilities, as so many writers seem to do with Joan of Arc’s output. Eventually, All At Once is not so different. The album is (and will make some of its critics) petulant, ridiculous and self-absorbed – and thus patently emo, so it’s probably successful at adhering to a genre and at accomplishing what it sets out to do. “If All These People Can Understand Money” asks us that “if all these people can understand money / is a useful analogy / then why can’t these same people / understand Christ / as a useful analogy?” The premise is heartfelt with the obviousness of emo music, but allows earnestness to take the place of engaged proposal. By the time we reach “and all the people continue thinking money’s real,” to fault the man for being obvious and linking leaden profundity to his music seems like faulting Kylie Minogue for making pop songs. Sure, the world’s more complicated than that, but not emo music.

So yes, this review is meant partially as a defense of Tim Kinsella, maddeningly incomprehensible lyrics, puppy-eyed sincerity and all. It’s time to give the guy a fair shake; that he’s done his time and he’s not going anywhere must surely speak to something. But this defense wouldn’t have any weight to it if Eventually, All At Once wasn’t actually fun to listen to. Like 2004’s Joan of Arc, Dick Cheney, Mark Twain…, the album’s instrumentation is cohesive and often subtle, displaying much of the patience, deliberateness and focus of strong songwriting usually indicating a band (however blown apart and put back together) who have written music and toured for years. The band shows less of its discordant and mistuned roots, instead favoring harmonies closer to So Much Staying Alive and Lovelessness. Most of EAAO is tinkling (and in-tune) acoustic guitar, and the dynamic between it and Kinsella’s voice is surprisingly less jarring than that we’ve become. Kinsella still runs his solipsistic lines counter to the momentum of the song, as if smashing headlong into perpendicular walls, but the prettiness of both the guitar work and the softness of volume make this perhaps the first Joan of Arc record you can put on in the background – their first album that won’t demand, with feet stomping and arms slapping against its side, that you pay attention to it.

Within the album’s decreased percussive presence, songs like “Living Out in the Sea of Umbrellas” use only what is necessary to drive the odd time signatures. Joan of Arc have tinkered with minimalism in the past, but thankfully absent are the extended samples of children and noisy outros. Instead, EAAO moves deliberately and keeps the directionless noodling to a minimum. “Many Times I’ve Mistaken” may be the template for the new Joan of Arc. The song, a straightforward acoustic ballad (and one of the few Joan of Arc songs where vocals and guitar work together rather than wrestle for dominance), is just plain pretty.

As always, Kinsella remains the sticking point, the easy target for those who wield the dreaded ‘pretentious’ tag and what keeps the band’s work from being broadly accessible, but even he has reined in what was sometimes a howling caterwaul (perhaps leaving that to his other mainstay band, the math rock-focused Make Believe). EAAO is the equivalent of an established artist returning with a confident, though decidedly tempered effort. If Tim Kinsella is the Van Morrison of the fuck-you art-punk aesthetic (the anti-personality who makes himself, intentionally or unintentionally, difficult to like), then this album is his Back on Top: sometimes middling and compromising, often maudlin when compared to the vitriol of earlier work, but marked with the simplicity of someone who simply loves to make the type of music that he is making.

It’s a more humble effort, one that may seem defeated or triumphant depending on how you look at it, but at this point in the Kinsella band-tree, Tim has earned the right to conciliation. With the album’s increased focus on telling the story of the song -- or just listening to The Music, man -- instead of telling the story of Tim Kinsella, EAAO is not so much an introduction as a chance to start over.