Review: The Dears – Gang of Losers

/ / review

What I love about buying music I’ve never heard of is the thrill of wondering what I’ve just ppurchased. Will it rock? Will I be lulled into a wonderful trance of haunting chants? If ears  were eyes, would they be as taken aback as if they were seeing Yellowstone for the first time?

Today, my ears are thanking me profusely for the new stuff. Specifically, the ears and I are groovin’ on some Dear music.

The first thing that struck me was the intro. Wasn’t quite ready for that. “Sinthro” is exactly what it sounds like–synth-based intro to a song that is nothing like what I expected based on the first track. “Ticket to Immortality starts off with a nifty little guitar riff with some orhcestral strings faintly accenting the background. It has a strangely familiar sound, though I can’t quite put my finger on it. I want to say that they sound like The Tragically Hip, but that’s not it … not sure what it is.

Oh. Ha. That explains it. They’re a Canadian band. That automatically adds a couple more stars on the 10-scale.

Yah … 3 tracks in, and every song sounds different. You know how there are those bands where everything sounds exactly the same (*AHEM*Nickelback*COUGH*Paramore*SNEEZE*)? Not these guys. Murray Lightburn goes to great lengths to mix it up. There’s some good keyboard use, and I’m DIGGING the guitars. My buddy Josh is a guitar player, and I’m betting he hasn’t heard of these guys. He could spend weeks de-constructing this CD. Probably won’t, but he would if he could. That’s my point.

Some songs are moody. Some are mellow. Some are rocking. All are well crafted and amazing. I’m starting to understand why Kylee at Graywhale said it was a good purchase. Stand-out tracks are:

  • Ticket to Immortality
  • Death or Life We Want You
  • Bandwagoners
  • Whites Only Party (no, that’s not a subliminal message from me to you … it really is a good track!!)
  • Ballad of Humankindness
  • Find Our Way to Freedom

Truthfully, the whole CD is great. I just really like their sound. There’s a LOT of different stuff going on here.

OH! I figured it out! There’s a kind of 70s throw-back sound to some of this! I definitely wouldn’t label this as classic rock, but you can tell there are some influences there.

If you like The Tragically Hip, Interpol , Band of Horses, Bright Eyes, or Cursive, you’ll really dig these guys.

The Return of the King

/ / New Music

Yes, I know … incredibly egotistical. Screw you. I’m back. 🙂

And hey … ya never know. Maybe “New Music Friday” is the king. Certainly could be, right? In fact, let’s go with that.

Now that I’m back amongst the employed (read: making money), of course I had to go to Graywhale. Lookie what I found, folks. Good stuff!

  • The Dears – Gang of Losers
  • The Child Who Was a Keyhole – In the Faxed Atmosphere
  • Tiffany Anders – Funny Cry Happy Gift\
  • Annuals – Be He Me
  • Arab Strap  – Monday at the Hug and Pint
  • The Early November – The Mother, the Mechanic, and the Path

Good haul! ALL of these were between $2-3 with my KW card discount. Yah, you read that right. $2 to $3 per CD. Amazon isn’t even that good, even if you can find the same CDs for one cent. The most promising look to be The Early November and The Dears, but I’m betting they’re all awesome. Guess we’ll see.

“So, where’ve you been? You haven’t written anything in, you know … forever.”

You are correct. I went off the radar for a bit. Things came up. Sorry! I still have to live life, ya know?

Anyway, listening to The Dears. I’ll write a review later.

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