TORONTO - "There's no Belle and Sebastian obsession going here," Stars of Track and Field guitarist Jason Bell says almost immediately.
"Well," vocalist Kevin Calaba interrupts, "I was going to go with 'Arab Strap,' but decided not to. It was a little too leathery.
"Seriously, the song was on, and Jay was like, 'This is a good name.' There is no intricate meaning."
Stealing their moniker from Belle and Sebastian's shoegazing anthem, "The Stars of Track and Field," Bell, Calaba and drummer Daniel Orvik had been quietly making noise in their hometown of Portland, Ore., when overnight the trio's 2005 debut EP - "You Came Here for Sunset Last Year" - became an instant radio hit in the Pacific Northwest.
Heaped full of praise, they were pegged by a producer from South by Southwest (SXSW) as a "Band to Watch for" and by year's end, the group had signed to Southern California's SideCho label (they've since joined Wind-Up Records) and returned to the studio with Tony Las (Elliot Smith) and Jeff Saltzman (Stephen Malkmus) to record their first full-length disc, "Centuries Before Love and War."
"I think for us, it was more of a continuation of what we were doing with the EP," Bell says, sandwiched between racks of clothes inside the Ukula boutique on College St. "But with the war and everything that's going on in America, and being Americans, it's pretty difficult not to be influenced by current events happening around us.
"I think that played on our psyches while we were making the recording."
In town for a packed showcase at Revival before heading to Texas for a series of shows at this month's SXSW, the trio's lush harmonies have been garnering comparisons to Radiohead and Coldplay, their first single - "Movies of Antarctica" - dressing up Chris Martin's often-copied vocals with computerized piano-pop flourishes.
But it wasn't always this atmospheric. The band's experimentation with digital programming happened when bassist Moxley Stratton exited the group a few years back.
Rather than tack want ads around Portland, Stars of Track and Field opted to weave programmed parts into their songs and carry on as a trio.
"It didn't make sense," Calaba says. "The band wasn't really broken, so we didn't want to go out and replace him."
"It was actually exciting," Orvik quickly adds. "It would have been less trouble to try and replace the person that we lost, but this seemed more challenging. Like taking the road less traveled."
At the opposite end of the musical dial from the much-hyped Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen gigs at SXSW, the delivery of many of the songs on "Centuries Before Love and War" feature beats that ricochet off Edge-y guitar lines ("Say Hello," "Exit the Recital"), and soap-bubble vocals that deftly channel Thom Yorke and Chris Martin (particularly on "Centuries").
"I think weather affects art," Bell says. "If you come from a cold, damp, rainy place, like we do, your art tends to be melancholic."
"I think Portland raises the bar," Calaba says as a way of explaining the band's epic stylings. "Whatever genre you fit in, music is a big fact of life in Portland."
"There are a lot of artists per capita in Portland I think," Orvik chimes in, "so that raises the bar. There's so many great musicians there. You can't even keep track of the new bands and venues that open and close. For a small city, it's really big."
Calaba, who has been pulling the hat trick onstage as vocalist, guitarist and keyboard player, says the trio are having fun interpreting "Centuries'" 10 tracks in a live setting. "We don't want to sound just like we do on the record, but we want to sound just as good."
And with a second swing through Hogtown already on the books for tonight at the El Mocambo, the boys were already planning out things to see when they returned.
"We're going to catch the Blue Jays," Calaba says, bleached in the white sunlight that's now dripping through the store's entrance.
But when he hears that the Jays' season doesn't get underway until next week, he grimaces. "That's not going to f**king work."
Looking at Bell and Orvik, he tries to maintain a straight face. "Then I guess we'll go to the tower.
"For people not from Toronto," says Calaba leaning into the tape recorder, "there's this tower right next to the stadium. We went over there once before and if it's cloudy you can look straight up and it looks like the tower's falling.
"It's pretty intense."
"Centuries Before Love and War" is in stores now.
Here are the remaining dates on the Stars of Track and Field's Canadian tour:
Tuesday, March 27 El Mocambo Toronto, ON
Wednesday, March 28 Main Hall Montreal, PQ
Sunday, May 20 Thunderbird Stadium Vancouver, BC (Virgin Festival)
