An imposing skyscraper looms front and center on the cover of Oakland band Man/Miracle's debut album, The Shape of Things. "It's a hotel in North Korea, the Ryugyong Hotel," says the group's frontman Dylan Travis while gazing at a xeroxed concert flyer featuring the image. "The government started building it in 1987 and they wanted to make it the tallest hotel in the world, but they just couldn't finish it. So it's been sitting there derelict for like 20 years. I guess they're turning it into a cell phone tower now." Pondering the underlying reasoning behind the cover art, he says, "It's weird, imposing, and has a lot to do with urban decay, but it's also full of so much life and creation, like something is growing."

Urban environs and striking architecture strongly influence Man/Miracle's sound. Walking down a barren, twilit stretch of International Boulevard in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood on the way to El Farolito for some ceviche tostadas, Travis reflects upon Oakland's layout. "You walk 10 blocks that way and you're in a pretty sketchy neighborhood. And if you cross the bridge to Alameda, it's just amazingly beautiful. It's like, what's going on? This is only five minutes away! There's a weird, jarring disconnect in going from one zone to the other, which I think happens in our songs a lot."

Travis is well aware of the effect specific places have on his band's music, having lived in a number of different locales before settling in East Oakland. Travis and drummer Tyler Corelitz started playing music growing up in Los Osos, California, a bedroom community near San Luis Obispo. After graduating high school, Travis went on what he calls a "spirit quest" that lead him through Portland, Humboldt (where he attended Humboldt State), Santa Cruz (where he met bassist Brian Kennedy and guitarist Ian Benedetti) and finally to Oakland, which Man/Miracle now call home.

"Relocating from the idyllic little sunny suburb of Los Osos to some of the most industrial, gnarly parts of Oakland has really informed our sound," Travis insists. "It's soaked into my bones. I see all the urban problems, all the crime … but also all the life. There's so much stuff going on. This neighborhood is thriving. A ton of art is created here and people are making the neighborhood beautiful."

While their sound is strongly intertwined urban landscapes, they also make recognizable references to specific artists and genres. "I listen to a lot of guitar pop from the '80s, like Talking Heads, Wire, Gang of Four," Travis says. He name-checks Brooklyn band Dirty Projectors, as well as certain strains of Afropop, as influences. "I've been listening to Fela (Kuti) since I was a little kid and I love King Sunny Ade (the famous Nigerian Juju singer)," Travis professes. "Something we talked about a lot when making this record was the interplay between African and Western pop music. We try to work it in without making it appropriation-like a dialogue."

All these disparate parts come together to form a contiguous whole, laying somewhere in the interstices between a gritty David Byrne, an East Oakland Juju or a more human sounding post-punk. It's edgy while staying accessible and globally minded without culturally burglarizing.

In a dense, tight set last Thursday at the Rickshaw Stop on a bill filled out by San Francisco bands Maus Haus and Tempo No Tempo, the quartet delivered a performance positively dripping in bristly, artsy kinetic energy. Benedetti and Travis's guitar interplay was a dynamic fireworks show. Corelitz's sharp tribal beats were tweaked just enough to keep everything on edge while Kennedy's fuzzy bass glued it all together. Travis flaunted his pent-up, yelpy yet melodic tenor over it all with flair. On the whole, they focused on the dance-prone side of their music. From behind his kit, Corelitz assured the audience, "It's OK to dance." Travis added, "Yeah, dancing is kosher." Many in the audience took the encouragement, swaying, nodding, moving, and some even outright grooving to the disjointed music. They closed with "Pushing and Shoving," which morphed into an anthemic rave-up by the time it arrived at its cathartic two-chord slam-bang chorus.

Man/Miracle are no less confident on record. Coming in at 10 tracks and barely 30 minutes, The Shape of Things is a chiseled, gaunt debut. "We'll focus our energy on a song for a while and if it doesn't live up to our standards, it gets scrapped," Travis says.

The album's brevity is one of its strengths. The Shape of Things finds a band confidently and concisely making their opening statement. Little inspired moments that waver between noisy, sideways angularity and near straight-up power pop make the album a dynamic, invigorating listen. The brainy track "Multitudes" unexpectedly turns razor sharp corners, guitars bristling while Travis sings in hiccups and erupts in shouts. On "Other People," Travis manipulates his voice with a cheap mic hooked up to delay and distortion. The two guitars in standout track "Hot Sprawl" interlock in a tense ascending line that culminates in a fit of frantically strummed notes on the upper reaches of the fret board.

For all its artsy leanings, at their core, Man/Miracle are really a pop band. They're kind of like a porcupine: They would be really cute and friendly looking if it weren't for all the spiky quills. "My goal as a musician is to build something up as opposed to taking something that exists and tearing it down," Travis explains. "I think a lot of artists just end up deconstructing and taking things apart. As a band, we're constructive." Hopefully, unlike the North Korean government's abandonment of the Ryugyong Hotel, Man/Miracle continue to make good on their promise of construction.

Tags: RICKSHAW STOP, MAN/MIRACLE