Words: Colin Kincaid
Photo: Victor Lewis/Vision Studios

Tallahassee's Look Mexico seems to be pretty damn good at hedging its bets. The role of the underground band is rife with both obstacles and cliches, but this melodic 'n' math-y North Florida quintet is adept at overcoming the former, and avoiding the latter altogether.

When the economy got desperately tough, for instance, the men of Look Mexico - vocalist/guitarist Matt Agrella; bassist Ryan Smith; drummer Joshua Mikel; guitarist Ryan Slate; and keyboardist Dave Pinkham - didn't ditch touring. Instead, they ditched their old 15-passenger van for a diesel model, and converted it to run on vegetable oil. Sure, occasionally things go heywire, like the time in Utah when their pump broke down and they had to revert to filtering the used grease from some Chinese food place through a t-shirt and into a gallon bucket, lengthening their trip to Reno by three hours. But they're saving cash and keeping themselves out of further credit card debt, so if they pull up to the venue smelling like egg rolls or french fries, well ...

"Oh, we do," says Agrella with a laugh. "Even more. Everything. Popcorn, fried chicken ... but we're pretty excited. We've made it from Central Florida, where a friend of ours helped do the conversion, all the way to Reno on a quarter tank of diesel. We're looking at a lot of money that we're saving."

Then there's the challenge of standing out in a scene crammed above and below the mainstream radar with an awful lot of bands that sound an awful lot like an awful lot of other bands. Look Mexico neatly sidesteps the issue by succumbing to neither punk-scene dogma nor mainstream trendsuckage; the band's sound, a deftly layered yet organic balance of engaging catchiness and intricate riffs and time signatures, is one all its own.

Which isn't to say the group hasn't garnered its share of comparisons over the past couple of years. But most of the other acts mentioned, such as American Football, Braid and Hey Mercedes, are from an earlier, more textured and technical era of proto-emo altogether, and the ambitious multi-instrumental sonics of Look Mexico's new EP Gasp Asp should leave those formerly somewhat apt associations in the past where they belong.

"We could argue as much as we wanted to about how we don't sound like that, or whatever," Agrella says. "People are going to say what comes to mind, and we can't really fight that. Fo us, what we were pumped about when we were finishing this EP was that there was definitely a different sound happening. We were playing it for our friends, everyone was saying the same stuff, how it was something new, something they hadn't heard. It's not like we're trying to be something completely brand new - well, we are, but there's only so many notes, and different ways to play 'em."

Of course, plying a strikingly new sound brings its own set of new considerations. Like, say, how this mix of melody, keyboards and instrumental prowess is gonna go over at a drunken, bearded, sweat- and volume-heavy shindig like this year's Fest in Gainesville.

"I had about five months of growth on my face when Look Mexico played last year, so I think I fit in," deadpans Agrella. "We feel pretty comfortable in the punk scene. Even though our stuff might not be as aggressive as other bands, we really get along with that whole scene, the people that are a part of it. It just seems like their lifestyle lines up with what we're going for. We have a lot of fun touring with fun people, it's as simple as that."

Look Mexico plays Auburndale, Florida's Bloodhound Bash Oct. 16 before returning at the end of the month for The Fest 7 in Gainesville.

myspace.com/lookmexico