Dog Day - Night Group
Label: Tomlab
Released: 2007
Grade: A-
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Danish label Tomlab's newest stab at indie rock couldn't be more straightforward and rocktastic. It's a bit unexpected from the label that's gotten such diverse and odd bands as The Books, Final Fantasy, Les Georges Leningrad and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone into my heavy rotation, but Night Group is certainly a quality release despite its lack of weirdness.
That said there really isn't anything special going on here on the surface. There's a guitarist, bassist, keyboardist and drummer, and they play rock music that sounds a lot like the Weakerthans with more guitars and synths. Dog Day throw rock note after note at you without remorse, and even their less intense songs don't give you enough time to think about anything. Each musician continuously bangs, strums, plucks and slams their respective instrument continuously throughout the album.
Yet there's more to it than that. Perhaps my favorite moment of the album is the opening twenty seconds when we hear a couple dark, morbid bass strums and a bloodcurdling scream before the true beginning of the great and catchy rock song "Lydia." It's a perfect mock start of an album with song titles like "Oh Dead Life," "End of the World" and "Great Pains" filling it. Sincere and serious songs is all to be found on Night Group and Dog Day is by no means a sunny band, but they are definitely not anywhere near blood/scream/deathcore. Hence they show me that they have room for humor in their lives.
"Gayhorse" has an exceptional chorus that resembles the best of Say Hi to your Mom's pop anthems; "i keep hearing voices/they tell me where we're going/it's a dark and lonely path/and i'm too late to take it back." My favorite track is "Oh Dead Life," a thoughtful lament on free will and time, with lyrics like "Life is too short to ration out in portions / I spend my time - as soon as I get it it's gone/ But I'm in no rush, I'm in no rush" amidst light female vocal doo-doo's. Why juxtapose something so light with something so heavy? Once again Dog Day refuses to be straightforward with their music and their lyrics - there's always something that remains ambiguous, and that's what makes life, as well as this music, interesting.
Dog Day even reveals their religious side by the end of the album in the song "Bright Light." At first the lyrics go, "Oh God is there a way without you existing in my way?" But it might not be such a 'bright' religious view; the song ends with the lyrics, "I will never find the bright light."Every song on this album is decent. When I started writing this review I gave it a B+, but it keeps on growing on me with every listen. Save yourself from all that new British indie rock crap like Boy Kill Boy, Winterkids and Kubichek and try some of this good ol' Canadian stuff.
MIGHT REMIND YOU OF: Weakerthans, Say Hi to Your Mom, Ben Kweller, Oranger, The Deathray Davies
LISTEN: myspace.com/dogdaytheband
by Roman the Fury