I discovered Strange Arrangement fairly recently (in the summer of 2010) and I have been lucky enough to watch this band blossom before my eyes. My first experiences with Strange were small venue shows, quick opening sets, and early afternoon festival slots. But in the short handful of months I’ve known this band, they’ve grown in leaps and skyrocketed up the ladder of venues in Chicago. In less than a year, they went from playing opening sets on weeknights to headlining a Friday night at Double Door, one of Chicago’s strongest & most popular venues. There is a laundry list of bands who’ve played this place and returned to Chicago the next time to multi-thousand person concert halls. This place is a key stepping stone for both national touring acts and up-and-coming bands alike. The bump up the ladder was fitting as they just released a stellar new album titled Polygraph and the old haunts simply weren’t cut out for the Strange Arrangement of 2011.

Their aforementioned progression up the Chicago live music scene didn’t come without an astounding maturation of their sound as well. Most of the material on Polygraph has been in the live rotation for a while and had been well worked in. But over the last few months they have discovered a level of fluidity & power with their sound that has taken them to the next level. One of the most apparent new strides they taken in pushing the envelope of their sound is the use of improvised jam-ins to some of their best songs. And this night’s show opened with a good one. A sparse mix of sounds built spacey tension until the synthesizer of Joe Hettinga dropped the beeping of the “Polygraph” machine, which caused uproar from the dedicated bunch of Strangers in attendance. This song is the title track of the new album for good reason: it’s an opus. It’s a massively composed piece that shuffles through time signatures & instrumental sections like a jazz rap. But then they went and stretched the legs on this version with a wide-open, guitar-driven jam section from Jimmy Conry that pushed this song past the 15-minute mark. What a great way to start the night!

The theme of opening up the boundaries of songs continued to be apparent as they segued through two classic songs. A goofy-hearted “Highway” got the crowd feeling chilled for a minute but then jumped right into the high-powered “Steamroller” which kicked the dance meter up to 10. “Steamroller” is fittingly named as it an absolute powerhouse of a song. It’s got a driving rhythm courtesy of Steve Sinde on the drumkit and Kevin Barry on the 7-string bass, aggressive guitar riffs, and energetic cascades of piano that all added up to one of their heaviest-hitting songs.

A little later on they opened up their bag of tricks with a new cover straight out of left field. With little fanfare they busted out “Kids With Guns” of Gorillaz fame. These guys might be rooted in rock-based jam music but their scope of influences is obviously very wide. They nailed this oddly awesome track from a legendary album with the help of perfect vocals and a hauntingly distorted guitar trip from Conry. Another song with ‘commercial’ appeal soon came around with “No Light.” It’s not that this song is famous or anything, but it’s the closest thing Strange has to a pop ballad. It’s dreamy, lyrically driven, and relatively simply composed, making it more radio-friendly than many of their more complex tunes.

The first half of this massive two-hour set was pretty damn solid. But the latter half bounded off the stage with a thunderous fury like I had never seen from this band. It began with another one of the cornerstone songs from the new album, “Bed Bugs.” This is an encore-quality song, with a ferocious guitar section and a bassline that never stops galloping. But they flipped the switch quickly and embarked on a sweet improvised jam. It retained the sharp-edged guitar work of the “Bed Bugs” section and eventually landed in an intergalactic ride on Hettinga’s synthesizer. But it turned out this jam was only a segue turnpike on the way to a potent rendition of “The Other Side.” This is a great song, representing some of the most dramatic energy from Polygraph and features some of Conry’s richest work with his vocal cords.

Following that massive bundle of jams with an intricately composed instrumental jam might not seem like a good idea. But a song like “Siete” can hold its own with just about anything. It starts with one of Barry’s most catchy & engaging basslines and unfolds as a patchwork of perfectly constructed instrumental sections. The gooey center of this song consisted of a jazzy electric organ section from Hettinga and a rarified peak thanks to a tumult of drums and an eviscerating display of axe swinging from Conry. This was no ordinary instrumental song. This was a monster.

When another jam-in came trotting along I had the suspicion that “Pegasus” was coming. Of course it was, but the sneaky improvisation masked the start if the song and added that little bit of mystery. It threw me off even more that Hettinga was at it again with extraterrestrial synth magic that sounded like nothing else in their catalogue. “Pegasus” is tailor made for a set ender and they know it. It has some of their catchiest lyrics, a wide dynamic spectrum, and a balls-to-the-wall peak jam. This version was absolutely dialed-in and had me dancing like a goon. But like a team of surgeons they segued out of the song on a dime and landed in another nuanced instrumental jam, “Los Tigres.” These two songs collided so perfectly it felt like the teeth of two giant gears closing together with the tolerance of a micrometer. “Tigres” is continuous a give-and-go between Hettinga and Conry. With the former bringing a light-hearted organ to the table and the latter arriving with a more ominous, serpentine guitar energy.

I thought for certain they’d bring “Pegasus” right back after playing with “Tigres” but they returned to left field with another out-of-the-box cover. After they covered Gorillaz, Bob Dylan’s “To Be Alone With You” was about the last thing I expected. And this might be the most impressive part about this band to me. They are so steeped in the basics of rock & blues that they can bust out a Dylan cover from 1969 without batting an eye. But then they are so talented and possess such raw creativity that they can cover eccentric, genre defying contemporary music with complete control. Of course after this brief departure they brought back the prog rock soaked, tension-building instrumental section of “Pegasus.” This song climbs as high as any I know of with an explosion of guitar & organ at the crest of the sound tsunami. This was the perfect set closing song and left me wondering what they had left for an encore.

After that musical beast there wasn’t much room left to climb. They had already done their best to singe everyone’s face with hot musical energy, so now they wanted everyone’s face to leave re-formed into a smile. They sent us off with one of their most cheerful & gregarious songs, “Mo.” It’s odd— for a tale of leaving a friend behind at McDonald’s on a road trip, this is one happy-go-lucky tune. And it was a great way to end the night keeping my face slapped with a huge grin. Not only was the music top notch, but the light production from Alex “Herm” Schneider was fantastic as well. He had a deluge of various lights and unleashed them with carefully planned abandon all night. He also seemed to know Strange’s music very well and pushed the overall energy of the show far beyond sounds and into the realm of blurring senses. This finely produced step up the hierarchy in Chicago marked the best performance I’ve seen yet from Strange Arrangement. If my nine months of experience with this band is any indication, I’d say there is nowhere for this band to go but up. Well, maybe national …