The notion of an unreliable narrator is a classic tool utilized by storywriters and songwriters alike. This idea-that you would doubt the validity of the claims being made by the only person who has a direct line to your mind-is endlessly intriguing. Of course, most of the time the narrator is lying in order to prop himself up, to make the reader or listener think better of him or worse of someone else. A slightly less common narrative approach is that of the truthful narrator, who nevertheless can come off as unsympathetic.

Bread & Circuses make lyric-heavy songs that generally tell a story, and many times lead singer and songwriter Marcus Buser allows himself to be the de facto bad guy in his own tales.

"I'm very OK with not being the hero," says Buser. "In fact, a lot of times I think I'm more the villain in a lot of the songs. It's kind of this duality that makes every person in every life more interesting. I always like the books and movies where the heroes weren't really the heroes, where maybe the bad guys were the ones that you liked-you know, that thing where challenging what's good and what's bad is prevalent. I think that being on the darker side of things can be relatable, too... But I think it is partially just very pure self-loathing. So yes, I make myself the bad guy because, in a lot of the situations I'm talking about, I am the bad guy."

Buser met drummer Colton Anderson in middle school, and together they began performing in punk bands. Over the years, that punk sound was synthesized into what Bread & Circuses has become. The attitude and youthful vigor of '90s pop-punk is at the heart of Bread & Circuses, though the band gently leans toward more modern indie rock, with occasional detours into psychedelia, reggae and the chamber pop of bands like Neutral Milk Hotel.

"You're musical tastes change as you get older," says Buser of his evolution from punk to his current sound. "When you're young, and you're in high school, you're so angry and you listen to punk rock... Probably the biggest change is not being so angsty. Or, being angsty but thinking about it in different ways, because I still think our music is very angsty, but it's more processed angst than just pure rage."

This pop-punk sound has fallen a bit from indie rock grace in the past few years. There's a kind of gross, highfalutin turning up of noses that has always been present in indie circles, part of which has to do with the shunning of those raw and often embarrassing emotions that pop-punk has a way of embracing. When bands like that are brought up, it's usually with the caveat that they are some sort of guilty pleasure-a concept which becomes more ludicrous with every passing year and the further widening of available types and tones of music.

There's no room any more (if there ever was) to be ashamed of liking certain bands, or for admitting to liking certain bands. Bread & Circuses make the music they want to make, without a shred of apology or winking irony. In their inclusion of more currently acceptable sounds and motifs, they ingratiate themselves to a broader indie audience, and without sacrificing what makes them so intrinsically themselves.

Buser tells personal stories of loves lost or shattered, and whether or not you're able to identify, it's hard to deny the high exuberance with which he tells them.

Bread & Circuses

with Western Haunts, The Diving Bell
Saturday, May 21, 8 p.m., $5
The New Frontier Lounge, 301 E 25^th St, Tacoma
253.572.4020