The hits keep on coming. The beginning of February features two highly anticipated albums. Sharon Van Etten follows up 2010′s Epic with Tramp and Dr. Dog return with their seventh album, Be the Void. Check out both reviews after the jump.
On Sharon Van Etten’s previous album, 2010’s Epic, she added a full backing band to add some muscle to the emotional heft of her fem-folkie lyrics and deep-but-still-feminine croon. Working with The National’s Aaron Dessner, the band is kept on a bit of a leash. Dessner instead highlights Sharon’s voice, and reserves the band for some bright splashes of color that come in supportive echos and reverbs – besides rhythmic support, of course.
Though, you wouldn’t know it at first with the opening “Warsaw,” a track with some slightly overdriven guitars and a chord progression that recalls the more harder edged moments of Mazzy Star’s So Tonight That I May See (and it helps that Ms. Van Etten’s voice has some of the same sleepy-eye melodic drawl that Hope Sandoval has made influential, seemingly, only as of late). But that relatively tough beginning soon gives out for the predominantly acoustic “Give Out,” a song of post-relationship reflection on those first inklings of love that stir within, and offering some of the more sharp instances of the kind of one-sided conversation that folk tunes tend to have: “I’m biting my lip / as confidence is speaking to me. / I loosen my grip from my palm / put it on your knee.” And that’s before she admits to her lover, “you’re the reason I’ll move to the city / or why I’ll need to leave.”
Credit must be given to Mr. Dessner for giving those moments of sonic color where they’re needed, as they brighten what are otherwise plain songs when you strip them down to the bare essentials. Some songs pop, like “Leonard,” which bounces in a short, punchy chorus that’s perfect for a movie trailer in mid-Oscar season. The majority of the record stays in that aforementioned haze of confusion and distrust that comes from a break-up, and is certainly meant for some solid early-evening reflectiveness if that’s your mood. When those sudden splotches of haunting, twinkling notes (from a guitar or a keyboard, usually) or buzzing shreds of guitar feedback echo behind Ms. Van Etten makes her sound all the stronger as an artist, but never betraying the vulnerability of her protagonist.
The most frustrating aspect of being a rock critic nowadays is having to make recommendations for certain bands, or assumptions of a given artist’s influences, based entirely on the classic rock they probably cut their teeth on. Knowing that today’s audiences, more likely than not, grew up on the same Dad Rock that their favorite bands still groove on and talk about among peers, indicates a kind of circular logic with records that makes it difficult (or easy, depending upon the artist, really) to judge a record on its own merits. Not to mention say that a given band is “our generations’” answer to Artist X.
The Hold Steady and Arcade Fire are neck-to-neck in the race to see who will be the next Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band; Kevin Barnes is ready to assume themselves as the new Ziggy-era Bowie; and Man Man make a case that maybe Captain Beefheart’s stuff could have been somewhat accessible at some point. Dr. Dog, however, manage to stand above the fray by going for broke for everything at once, and just want to be your new favorite band.
And while that may have been the case over the course of their entire existence, there’s a particular goal in mind in Be the Void – an album title, by the way, that is perhaps a precise indication for the focus of the band on this record and beyond – that tries to stretch across all potential favorite bands of various times and places. The album opens with a lanky and loose southern-fried folkie tune, “Lonesome,” whose music sounds as bucktoothed but meaningful as the sentiment behind its chorus: “What does it take to be lonesome? / Nothing at all.” It’s a punchline that is simultaneously true (obviously), but frustrating considering the stomping rhythm and the slacker-blues guitar that ornate the track.
But that whole motif is dropped by the next track, “That Old Black Hole,” a tune that begins with psych-soul intimations, but will suddenly turn to a punk-ska tune, perfect for pogoing in the crowd, with a few specks of southern rock melody. I don’t know how they do it, but it is spontaneous, and not quite artful, but simply terrific.
As a matter of fact, the whole album focusing on trying to surprise with what ‘kind’ of song will pop up next, rather than impressing you with doing one thing particularly well. It’s not that Dr. Dog was ever the kind of band that could nail down one sound and stick with it, but it seems like Be the Void wants to fulfill a promise of a terrific live act. But for all the surprises that come from track to track, the problem is that exact spontaneity is more of a novelty than an asset, the first six tracks feel like something cool to listen to until while you wait for the band to kick it into high gear to show off what they are really capable of.
One cannot help but think that if the songs were arranged in a different order, the majority of the album would be considered filler. Instead, the songs are ordered in such a way as to make even weaker moments seem like winners. It’s with that in mind that I’m willing to say that “Vampire” is a contender one of the finest songs to be composed and recorded in the past few years, as it’s at this point that not only is the structure of the song itself fun and brawny, but the performances of each of the band matches the intensity of the song.
It’s at this point where the spontaneity turns toward the kind of bands that are easy to compare Dr. Dog to. “Vampire” is a tribute to T. Rex and Marc Bolan; meanwhile, “Big Girl” is best compared to the later Beatles; “Over Here, Over There” has some of the bounce and simple melody that assumes that maybe the band had a copy of the Beach Boys’ Smile Sessions just laying around, waiting to be paid tribute to; and “Warrior Man” is, quite literally, the perfect marriage of ‘Honky Dory’ era Bowie and “Lola Vs. the Powerman”-era Kinks, with a guitar solo that introduces the Velvet Underground for just a quick moment.
But then, the record ends on a relatively quiet, jaunty tune, busy only with orchestration and less with noise, “Turning the Century.” Here, a sitar is just as much a ‘southern’ instrument as a buzzing acoustic guitar, and bounces along for an almost goofy feel, until it turns itself into a serious blues that, even then, just wants to end on such a feel-good note, that it’s impossible to have anything to say about it.
To be sure, Be the Void is a terrific display of talent, as well as knowledge as to what makes other records sound like. Regardless of the tributes that dot the music throughout, Dr. Dog have created a fun and interesting album that is solid across the board, even if it takes a while to build to the more immediately enjoyable (and noticeably more original) moments.
