Songs Of The Week #31: TCDroogsma

Dog Bite, DRGN KING, Jose James, The James Hunter Six, & Bad Bad Hats...

Well hello again, MP3 junkies! Welcome to Songs Of The Week #31!

For those of you who aren't totally sure what you're looking at, here's the story. Each week we ask two of our regular contributors to download the tracks given away via The Current's Song Of The Day podcast.

After spending a few days with the songs, we ask our contributors for a brief review of the songs and a score of 1-5.

As always, we highly suggest that you follow this link and subscribe to the podcast for yourself. It's free music, people!

To that end, we've also posted a poll to the right side of this page. Vote for whichever one of this week's songs was your favorite. At the end of the week the winning artist will receive the sort of validation that can only come from winning an anonymous internet poll. Obviously it's pretty important that you vote.

As those of you who've been following this column over the last couple of week's know, we've been unable to find a second person to join TCDroogsma in writing this post. Remarkably we just don't seem to know any judgmental music fans who are willing to commit. So, to the the chagrin of pretty much everybody, TCDroogsma flies solo once again.

Let's get into it. Droogsy, thoughts?

01. Dog Bite – Forever Until (from the album Velvet Changes)

TCDroogsma:

     With "Forever Until" Dog Bite walks the line between nostalgia and current sounds or is a wholly unoriginal song.  Which side of that line it falls over depends almost wholly on the knowledge and mood of the listener.

     I, for one, thinks it does a fine job of staying on the "nostalgia" line while sort of staying in line with current indie rock sounds.  They take a tried-and-true page out of the British Invasion of the early 60's by finding a guitar riff that works and riding it for a whole song.  If it worked for bands like The Beatles, The Stones, and Cream it'll work for Dog Bite.

     Vocally they're taking their cues from the early 90's, with the shoegaze-y, far off vocals sounding like Bob Pollard fronting My Bloody Valentine.  As someone who is a die-hard 90's fan I can definitely get behind that.

     What really keeps me engaged with "Forever Until" is the way that the chorus doesn't just ride the echoed vocals to a woozy feeling, it actually has a moment where the instruments seem to drop half a note.  This makes the complete lack of a vocal hook moot, as I spend the chorus just trying to find my bearings.  Fortunately, balance is restored when that guitar hook comes to start the next verse.  Proof positive that all you need is one good guitar riff and a working knowledge of rock n roll.

Final Score: 3/5

02. DRGN KING – Wild Night (from the album Paragraph Nights)

TCDroogsma:

     It took me a bit to figure out why DRGN KING sounds so familiar even though, to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time I have heard them.

     It finally hit me.  I've never heard these guys before, but I've heard them a million times before.  In every Taking Back Sunday or Thrice album I ever played back in the early 2000's.  Listen closely to the dual vocals in your headphones in the chorus, the "moment-in-time" intro, the way the song breaks down after the second chorus with everything going half-time before building to the last chorus, the the melody-abandoning moans that appear after the last chorus... hell, even lyrics like, "if we make our mistakes together is it any less stupid?" sound like they came straight off a Yellowcard record.

    They really drive the point home with the chorus, "You could take me on a wild night, I don't ever want to go home, it doesn't matter if it's ever right..." is right out of the "frustrated small town kid" punk rock playbook.

     Fortunately, DRGN KING balances is this off with a bouncy keyboard & bass combo and enough falsetto "Woo-ooh's" to imply that their was a copy of Parklife next to Tell All Your Friends in their first car's six-disc changer.  Basically, I can't foresee pursuing this band much further, but I'll be damned if "Wild Night" isn't a fun trip down memory lane.

Final Score: 3.5/5

03. Jose James – Do You Feel (from the album No Beginning No End)

TCDroogsma:

     I'll be honest, "Do You Feel" was fighting an uphill battle from the moment I saw that the title didn't have a question mark.  Throw in the fact that it's seven and a half minutes long and it would have to be really good to win me over.

     Well, it's not, but I did struggle over the last couple of days trying to figure out what to make of this one.  On its surface, "Do You Feel" is every Harry Connick Jr. song ever.  A smooth-voiced, soul singer over a lounge-y piano riff lamenting whether or not a woman could be the one.  Hell, this sounds like the song Harry Connick Jr. would have written to soundtrack the Will & Grace episode where Harry Connick Jr and, um... Grace have a fight and then reconcile.  Yes, its that vanilla.

     Two things jumped out at me about this song.  First of all, pace is the trick.  If you're not going to break any new ground with a style of song, you better dress it up and give me a reason to stay engaged.  Instead, Jose James waits a whole three and a half minutes to abandon the vocals and allow the piano, bass, and drums to do their thing.  Why didn't this happen after the second chorus?  You've got me.  Adding insult to injury, some horns finally show up to break up the monotony, but not until 6:45 into the song!  It's a great idea, but it would have been better if they'd turned up after my imagined piano break going into the third verse.  It may not seem like much, but little things like that are why Burt Bacharach is a legend and I had to check Jose James name twice before writing this review.

     The second thing that came to mind when reviewing "Do You Feel" stems from that last point.  Namely, at its core, this isn't a bad song.  If Sondre Lerche had put this song on his Duper Sessions album it would have been tossed off immediately as a genre-excercise (much like the rest of that clunker of an album).  Of course, if Andre 3000 had sung this song as the centerpiece of The Love Below it would be universally recognized as a highlight of a Grammy-winning album and the moment when Three Stacks revealed himself to be maturing as a man and an artists.  This song could be great depending on the setting and the arrangement.  Instead, we're left with the definition of, "Meh."

Final Score: 1.5/5

04. The James Hunter Six – Minute By Minute (from the album Minute By Minute)

TCDroogsma:

     I face a dilemma every time I'm supposed to review soul music.  Namely, I don't listen to soul music.  Much like somebody who's never been to a play thinks every play is great, I tend to thoroughly enjoy the soul music I listen to in this medium (I discussed this when I reviewed The Valdons last year too).  Being forced to listen to "Minute By Minute" six times provided me the opportunity to let its charms and flaws reveal themselves.  Still, I know for a fact that if I actually bought this album I would lost interest after three songs.  My ability to judge soul music is dependent almost completely obligation and quantity.

     That being said, "Minute By Minute" sounds like Bobby Womack fronting Spoon.  This is an awesome thing.  For all the Bruno Mars and Toussaint Morrison's in the world, there just aren't enough James Hunters.  Sure, those other guys will show their "warts" lyrically, on their terms.  There's no hiding Hunter's voice when it can't quite hit those high notes.  His vocals are charming in a, "chain-smoking between songs" kind of way.  And the "Six" work up a nice groove behind him.  Standing on its own, "Minute By Minute" is a fine time.

Final Score: 3.5/5

05. Bad Bad Hats – Super America (from the EP It Hurts)

 
TCDroogsma:

     Over the last couple of years the Twin Cities scene has been dominated by two poorly-monikered, quirk-heavy, actual-song-devoid female-fronted band.  Lucy Michelle & The Velvet Lapelles Lapelles and Caroline Smith & The Good-Night-Sleeps.  I don't know if Bad Bad Hats is making a play for some of their turf (they nailed the poor moniker), but they failed in the best way possible.

     Make no mistake, "Super America" is heavy on the quirk.  I almost wrote this whole thing off when they left in the giggling & playful banter underneath the bridge (Note to new bands: Seriously, DO NOT do that.  We get it. You're friends having fun.), but all things considered, Bad Bad Hats has a lot more in common with my favorite female-fronted band of the last few years, Total Babe.

    Where as Lucy Michelle & Caroline Smith and Their Cast-Of-Every-Hipster-You've-Ever-Mets have only rough ideas for songs that are then drowned in quirkiness, Bad Bad Hat has a full, strong sound.  The production (minus the giggling interlude) is well done and the chorus is definitely muscular.  I don't really know what's going on lyrically, with singer Kerry Alexander rattling off a list of things that could literally be bought at Super America, but the song does contain the line, "I want you more than I want the things you lack," which is just about the sweetest thing somebody could say to somebody else.

Final Score: 3/5

So there you have it, folks.  Another week's worth of songs downloaded, reviewed, and filed away!

As always, please remember that neither Newest Industry nor its contributors is in any way affiliated with the artists above, The Current, or Minnesota Public Radio.  We're just music fans with laptops and a little too much time on our hands.

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