Well then.
This is, by a reasonable margin though certainly not a landslide, the best record this thread has produced. And I say that having given both The Drive-By Truckers and Michael Stearns 9s.
“Dogs At Bay” is the culmination of nearly 50 years of garage band rock and roll, winnowed down to the crunchiest walloping guitar hooks, and the strummiest tinktabulating, with a drummer who drives the songs at the ideal beats per minute (i.e. fast but not punk breakneck), and a tuneful bassist inserting himself at precisely the correct moments, and a singer who’s emerged unshowered and alternatively (1) raging from the primordial ooze like one of those orcs in Lord of the Rings, and (2) plaintively -- almost pathetically -- pleading for a lover to return. Take them all plus their music, then toss them into the dust and rocks and rust and beer and testosterone -- and the lower-income strata -- of Adelaide. It’s a place I’ve never been, but a place I feel like I know after listening to this record several times, and having watched all the videos I could find (which you should check out if you liked this by the way -– they have pitifully few YouTube views). What you get is a record and a band that feels unkempt and dirty, but extraordinarily tight; both brand new and fresh, but timeless as well. These are very rare combinations.
Listening to this I hear a few dozen influences, but no over-arching one. They certainly sound a lot less like The Replacements than I expected. Others have brought many artists up (like Saints) and so have I (The Feelies, who were an 80s version of Velvet Underground in many ways, is another I heard here, along with a smidge of Tom Petty, a dash of The Cure and a speck of REM). But that’s what makes this special. I hear influence, but absolutely no tributes, no copying, no homages. It’s defiant. It’s as if the band invented this music on their own without any influences, and only accidentally and sporadically sound like other bands, in bits and pieces. The fact that we can’t pigeonhole influence is IMO a mark of great distinction.
I don’t know where to go in ranking the stand-out tracks, because I loved so many. But New Boys, Bogan Pride, Hiding To Nothing, Dumb Ideas and Naden all demand multiple plays instantly. If those five were on an EP, it would be one of my favo(u)rites (my top pick being REM’s “Chronic Town” for the last 40 years). Some of the tunes here are so full of energy, they make you want to throw chairs through windows, smash up speakers, pogo wildly while being sprayed with a firehose full of grain alcohol. But yet as the record moves on there’s melody here – not just power and noise. There are chord changes that would do The Byrds proud. And the lyrics belie anger yet pride yet acceptance of one’s fate yet longing, whether it be for a woman, or for the old neighbourhood. We’re stuck in our rut here in Adelaide, stuck with the people, and we love it and them as much as we are angry about how difficult it is to break free. I am charmed by turns of phrase like “In the bush / And beating around” among others. The "Get in / Get out" of Bogan Pride screams anthem. The irony here is that the “dogs” are not anything like at bay, or if they are, they are barking and yapping and yipping and sometimes snarling and leaping behind a cyclone fence, just waiting to unleash themselves in their saliva and fury.
The best compliment I can pay this band is this: after a couple of listens, completely enthralled, I went to their website and found out Bad//Dreems will be in San Francisco in less than two weeks, playing a small club I know! But I will be out of town and I can’t get out of the trip. I am -- honestly -- almost as disappointed as I was when Benzema knocked in that penalty. It’s true: that’s how bummed I am to be missing these guys live. That this band is still (apparently) largely unknown outside of Australia is astounding, though maybe they wouldn’t want it any other way.
Well, I know them now, and the good news is that, like
@southamptonblue, I can go on a different trip, hunting through the other records they’ve released. And to be honest, like Manchester City FC when they tour the States vs. playing at the Etihad, it’s probably best if I saw them live in Adelaide to get the full effect of their quite remarkable music and where it comes from culturally.
This is a triumphant album. I've spent days with these tunes in my head. It’s a better than a 9 . . . maybe a 9.5.
But we don’t do decimals, bitches.
10/10.
PS. When I start a band some day, I'm naming it "Idiot Wind" which these guys reference. Guess Dylan was an influence too!
