The Caribbean usually gets described in terms of its members’ history in DC-area bands Townies and Smart Went Crazy. That genealogy is technically correct - but sonically, the band seems to be more and more ex-Townie Michael Kentoff’s baby, something that became even more obvious to me once I finally heard the Townies’ output. While the Caribbean is far more innovative in every way, particularly in terms of its sonics (it'’s no accident that this album’s European release is being handled by cerebral German label Tomlab), and the Townies were clearly a guitar-based act, Kentoff'’s almost jazz-like harmonic tendencies and wandering melodic sense show the Caribbean as a clear evolution along the line the Townies traced from The Red Carpet Parlay of the Decade through Pluperfect/The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, their finale. That said, ex-Smart Went Crazy drummer Tony Dennison’s jazz influences, along with a generally quieter sensibility, mark a clear distinction between Kentoff’s two bands. Compared with the Caribbean's last release Verse by Verse, there are fewer "rock" moments here, and in some ways that makes History's First Know-it-All a less immediately appealing record. But immediacy is not the only way to impress, and those somewhat evasive melodies do eventually find their goals. The sonic detail Kentoff and his cast of thousands (okay, tens) work into these songs' careful mosaics is truly impressive and rewards repeated close listening. Just a few: the slapback-echoed piano at the beginning of "The Requirements" and the same track's clarinet-like background synths, the cross-speaker reverb in "Oahu Sugar Strike," or the tremolo'd out, cross-rhythmic drum sample at the very end of "Fresh Out of Travel Agent School" (rumor has it that the original mix featured that drum sample boldly standing in the light of day...and that lawyers for some famous band named after a lighter-than-air German flying machine were less than pleased by its presence). In fact, in its attention to sonic detail, odd lyrics, and jazz lurking in the background, could it be that a Steely Dan schooled not in the perfectionist seventies studio ethos but in the looser indie-rock bedroom recordist of the nineties and uh-ohs (that's this decade) might sound something like this? (That's a compliment in my book, by the way.) While we're on the subject of audible influences that frighten the indie police, the heavily reverbed, quiet vocal harmonies in "Bulbs and Switches" remind me of nothing so much as Simon & Garfunkel's "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" - and for some reason, the opening piano part and chord sequence of "Trick Photography" keep reminding me of some of Paul Simon's solo work. I'm pretty sure this is only because Tom Ridge is beaming energy waves at me, so I'm going to put on my tin-foil hat now and re-listen. Yep, sounds nothing like Paul Simon now. Whew. Anyway, despite the generally subtle mood of the album, a couple moments do evoke the simpler pleasures to be gleaned from loud guitars: the scratchy "Getting Better" rhythm, and slice-of-life lyrics, make "Officer Garvey" sound a bit like Drums and Wires-era XTC (although the buzzing, bicycle-bell sound in the background sounds more like the contemporaneous blame-it-on-Andy-Partridge remix item Take Away), and the title track features a forest of trebly, barely-in-tune guitars that raise quite the pleasant ruckus. History's First Know-it-All is another piece of evidence supporting the proposition that the Caribbean is among the best bands working today. Ignore it, and you'll have to lie in the future about how you were into them way back when before everyone knew how great they were. (PS: the European Tomlab release omits one track - the rather odd "It's Unlikely to Settle the Difference" - and adds another one, "The Coward's Approach," while featuring a less lawyer-spooked mix of "Travel Agent School.")