Take it as you will, but Dancer Equired literally sounds like the work of a couple kids that figured they could record some songs in their garage. The production’s primitive, the harmonies are crude and the sonic ideas are base; keyboard hooks often follow vocal melodies and vice versa. Its movements are abrupt and are occasionally awkward, as if the two songs Rivers Cuomo wrote for a botched rock opera on his second Home Recordings compilation were expanded into a more polished full-length. There are lots of toms and sugary melodies to please, but it sounds like, five years into making music, Times New Viking still have trouble writing songs that are fleshed out enough to justify their intentionally rough production. The group is playfully odd on “More Rumours” and “Don’t Go to Liverpool” and sound like a pleasant Yuck on “Try Harder”, but the only really interesting aspect of Dancer Equired is Jared Philips’s guitar sound, which is rich in tone and the obvious advantage to the album’s rawness. So, overall, Dancer Equired is very good, but can be skipped, as it is just another clock in for a group that is gradually improving upon its own little niche.
No comments:
Post a Comment