Username

Password

Register - it'll be fun

x
• NEW!: Strangeglue launch brand new community forums. Click here to register.

Dear and the Headlights: Drunk Like Bible Times

02nd October 2008 | by Aidan Williamson

Sound can deluge you with a thousand channels of vision or expand one single image to crystal clarity - and beyond. It can shape your vision to anything the artists imagination can conceive. It can reach from the deepest inner minds to the stratosphere.

With that in mind while some bands such as say Cobra Starship conjure visions of Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the same hill over and over again, well, if the boulder happened to be a huge pile of crap that is. In comparison, Dear and the Headlights implant many a vision with their mixture of alt. country and the heavier side of rock music. Imagine, if you will, a scenario from a western playing out on the piste of Mount Logan in Canada and you'll be somewhere in the vicinity of our mindset. A place where the simple delights of rural life are met with the coldness of humanity and unexpected propulsive violence, this is Dear country.

With the Arizonan band's second album, vocalist Ian Metzger has upped the ante. He veers from syncopated, mumbling verses through to mesmerising vocal sustains all the way up to desperate screams which are quickly stifled under crescendos. All in all, if you can imagine Brandon Flowers from The Killers, Steve Bays of Hot Hot Heat and Conor Oberst of "Lifted..." era Bright Eyes joining forces, you'll have small idea of the range this man is capable of.

Debut effort "Small Steps, Heavy Hooves" was an album which demanded patience, and "Drunk Like Bible Times" is no different. There has been changes in the sound over the albums. Songs have the confidence to go to greater heights, explore and try out new ideas. This is occasionally (and sadly) at the expense of the more emotional moments which littered "SSHH". It seems with the greater confidence, the vulnerabilities which made their debut so arresting have been sealed up, taking away something from its impact in the process.

If there was a song which highlights the strong arguments for the emboldened sound though, it has to be album closer "I Know". Metzger spends the first minute discordantly singing over a sparse glockenspiel/guitar duet before subtly beginning to bend the notes in harmony with the rest of the band. Once that happens, the entire collective burst into a furious section reminiscent of an early Mew recording. The very second that passage becomes familiar, the whole thing is dropped for a dance-punk clap-along which eventually transposes the action to the local tavern for a good old fashioned ensemble sing-out. The sheer scope of this track is enough to put any previous raised concerns to rest.

Obviously, the tracks which come before it have some perks too. "Wiletta" takes a swinging waltz rhythm and slowly builds swirling reverbed tremolos around its lamented yearnings before the whole song culminates in an explosively mpassioned yelp which caps the song off nicely. For those preferring the songs on the upbeat, there's "Talk About" as Metzger sardonically declares "You wanna talk about all the feelings I'm feeling / I'm a passed out priest in an AA meeting / You're like a knock at the door in the middle of dinner / From the friendly registered sex offender". In the sprightly moments, this unashamed sense of fun is what stops it all from getting completely overblown and overtly pretentious.

While "Parallel Lines" is perhaps the only track to keep things resolutely low-key, each song has its contrasting moments which serve to never let a section grow stale. This considered approach to songwriting is a major advantage in the somewhat crowded field of rock tinged alt. country. Here's a vision for you: imagine a high street or a internet-enabled computer, now picture yourself at a music shop. There's a Dear and the Headlights CD there. Can you see it? Now, do you notice that the opportunity is available for you to purchase said CD. Do it!

Rating:  8 / 10

Partners