The Appleseed Cast have long been associated with teen angst, unrequited love, and learner’s permit drives around suburbia. So we came to see them last night curious as to whether we could still rightfully refer to the Lawrence, Kansas rockers as an “emo” band, or if they’ve managed to shrug off that pesky label in 10 years of evolution. Pitchfork called the ‘Cast’s latest album, Peregrine, “an emo record for people who hate emo,” but this description hardly does them justice.

Over their past six full-length albums, the band members have honed their abilities to craft complex, experimental songs without turning into the cliché of an indie band striving for a more innovative sound. The A.C. favors long, opus-like numbers. A typical song is over six minutes long, and several songs on 2006’s Peregrine (and on 2001’s acclaimed Low Level Owl collection) are strictly instrumental.

The greatest thing about seeing the band perform live is the restraint with which they unfurl their songs. The songs slowly build momentum until they reach a soaring crescendo, before dying down just as gradually, to haunting effect. The way that Sean Paul was created to be a studio-artist, the Appleseed Cast, with their triumphal, rough-around-the-edges songs, were made for live shows. The band always lets singer Chris Crisci’s voice take a backseat to the guitar arpeggios and heavy drums. This heightens the urgency of Crisci’s voice, because it sounds like he’s struggling to sing through the music rather than on top of it. But the set-up at the Rock and Roll Hotel last night took this effect to the extreme. Standing up close to the stage, it was nearly impossible to hear Crisci’s singing. The sound was better further from the stage, but when one’s ability to rock out is inversely proportional to proximity to the stage, that’s just wrong. This was most frustrating during the song “Forever Longing the Golden Sunsets” from 2000’s Mare Vitalis.