Roomrunner doesn't always sound like Nirvana, but considering the promo sticker on the front of the band's debut LP Ideal Cities reads, “Yes, we’ve heard Nirvana. Try harder,” it's a comment they must field often. There's some Bleach here, some "Lithium" there, but in the spirit of trying harder, Roomrunner's true orbit revolves around their hometown of Baltimore and their fellow noise-punk bands. Charm City was nowhere near the genesis for their favorite 90s grunge and post-hardcore sounds like Seattle or Chicago. While Nirvana recorded Bleach for Sub Pop and the Jesus Lizard recorded the Pure EP for Touch & Go, the most famous song to come out of Baltimore in 1989 was the cheeseball anthem and "Centerfield" knock-off, “Why Not?”, written for the suddenly and surprisingly good Baltimore Orioles, who finally had the chance to go all the way. Did they? Of course not. They too had to try harder.

Over last 20 years the city’s plucky DIY music community has grown in size and in spirit thanks in large part to national publicity gained by Dan Deacon and the Wham City Collective. Warehouse spaces like the Copy Cat Building became industrial salons for the city's moshing art-core noise out of which Roomrunner was born. More specifically, the band rose from the ashes of Baltimore punk mainstays Double Dagger. DD drummer and now RR guitarist/singer Denny Bowen hooked up with all-star Baltimore engineer Dan Frome in 2011 for a self-titled cassette EP, and again in 2012 for four uncontrollable grunge jams on the Super Vague EP. Frome returns for Ideal Cities on Fan Death Records, and leads the band outside of the lived-in brambles of noise that defined their first two releases.

Ideal Cities tightens all the screws on Roomrunner’s noise rock-- it’s their Nevermind if you really want to rib them. The outer frequencies are trimmed, leaving much more meat to chew on, and sharper focus is put Bowen’s sardonic vocals. “Wojtek” is the band’s furthest leap into pop territory to date. The guitars and drums work in unison to give the song some breath, but the feedback that leaks out sounds like they’re trying to choke the ever-loving life out of a Strokes song.

Beyond “Wojtek”, Roomrunner decline to offer a helping hand into their atonal, arrhythmic salvos. “Bait Car” bounces around in 7/4 in several obtuse key signatures. The tumbling power chords that support “Bowlth” seem random at best, with Bowen’s nasal voice forging melody lines that complement the dissonant mess beneath it. The bulk of Ideal Cities flies in the face of “hooks,” instead leaving Bowen’s voice behind fat stacks of distorted bass and guitar. It might be jazz with different instrumentation, it would be math rock if they cared a bit more, but Roomrunner follow a long line of proud Baltimore bands who have so long been overlooked in the mainstream. They wear their weird, local colors proud.

The testosterone rage of Baltimore’s Dope Body sneaks out at the end of the brutish “Weird”, and the stripped-down melodicism of Baltimore’s Weekends show up at the close of “Snac Error”, a song named after cryptic error message one gets on AIM/ICQ. This local debt Roomrunner pays on Ideal Cities makes it a prickly and cagey listen, one that doesn’t fully reveal itself until after several go-arounds, especially if you're not that familiar with the city's sound. Even if you come in with your palate trained on post-hardcore and Local H’s guitar feedback tricks, the angular approach that makes the band so powerful live makes the recorded version bleed together.

At about 30 minutes in length, Ideal Cities never overstays its welcome. It absolutely scans as sharing an aesthetic with Nirvana or the Jesus Lizard: ripped-jeans and ratty t-shirts, cans of Natty Boh and Western Fries, as cynical as it is passionate. But on “Apse”, Bowen lays out the band’s own us vs. them stance: “They’ve got a question/ Make up an answer.” That nonchalance in the face of authority seemed like a product of gen X in the 90s, but for Roomrunner today, it’s just the Baltimore ethos: we’ll do it the way we want to do it. Why not?