Stream the album here to form your own opinion
So, lots of stuff on The Dears lately. The band who is perhaps best known (or most affectionally known) for the album No Cities Left. After that came Gangs of Losers, but the band seemed to lose steam a little with Missiles. Not only did it lose steam, the band basically fell apart. Now Murray Lightburn has got a crew together again and wants to make it happen with this one, Degeneration Street. Loads of conflicting opinions on it. Some herald it as a return to form, others (including and perhaps most notably Pitchfork) think this basically the final nail in the coffin. The Album
The track ‘Omega Dog’ starts it off as a real indie-rock anthem. The rock especially coming from the searing guitar at the end, which is not too shabby. The guitar really gets a lot of burn on this album. ‘Omega Dog’ is perhaps the epitome of The Dears as a band: epic rock with those distinctive vocals by Lightburn sneering about something or another. Those guitars are definitely nice to hear.
‘5 Chords’ starts off with the lines “Father, up in heaven” and at one point continues with “mother, here on earth”. It sounds more uplifting than the previous song, the music that is. Not Lightburn. He does pour his heart out though. To be fair, some of the lyrics do sound a bit trite, but because of Lightburn’s vigour he gets away with more than other people.
‘Blood’, I mean, the title alone gives away the mood no? Again the guitar is something which immediately jumps out. It basically matches Lightburn’s punch, and here it is kind of noisy, kind of old-fashioned pedal heavy it sounds. This is offset with acoustic play. ‘Thrones’ seems a bit, well, “epic”, but not in the good sense. It has more of a mainstream mood than for example the album’s opener.
‘Lamentation’ really sounds like a lamentation. Maybe too heavily so with lines as “Show me some mercy / show me that you care”. Not sure what I think about the backing vocals going “oee-oh-oeh-hoee”. But blimey, at the end it does go a bit over the top if you ask me, with the increased volume on the backings and the overall sound of the music. By the look of the running time, ‘Torches’ is kind of a transition song, and it is, an instrumental composition to be more exact.
‘Galactic Tides’ is a slow song where Lightburn goes into falsetto mode. I do still love his voice, have always loved it. Nice guitar again, but this time obviously not like at the start, but suitable for a ballad. But again much time for it, almost old school. The same backing vocals as on ‘Lamentation’ crop up though, apparently those were in the blueprint for ballad making for this album. Love the scream at the end though.
We are going in ho-down mode for ‘Yesteryear’, I guess in the same ironic way as on ‘Whites Only Party’. Or perhaps not, I can’t tell on first listen. It is not really a ho-down either, but a catchy acoustic, simplistic riff that has nothing at all to do with the rest of the album. It is something I can see people dance to, which is all right, not sure about it in the middle of a The Dears album though. ‘Stick w/ Me Kid’ starts with the menacing voice of Lightburn. Very cinematic feel this has, with the quick quick strumming in the background moving it forward, and the more talking than singing Lightburn vocals over it. Quite like this one. I think this one has that bit of epicness without compromising on mood and theme.
With ‘Tiny Man’ The Dears take the foot off of the pedal for a moment, with an acoustic guitar and with what sounds like a sort of country/slide guitar accompanying the vocals. At one point I do hear “Hey sister, go sister” for a moment, which he isn’t saying at all, but the diction was so alike that’s what I heard! That would’ve been totally wicked. Madness, but wicked.
“Closed my eyes and found you”, Lightburn sure mixes up the heartfelt statements with some rather trite stuff sometimes. Maybe on this song you don’t get the heart that you do hear in other songs, which makes some of these lines like “I’m just a boy searching for love” rather meh. I do like the line “Was it a massive war of the classes or a passing thought” on the next song, called ‘Unsung’, though. This song, too, has some rather “mainstream” moments where it perhaps is all a bit too bombastic, and it is just the mood it exhumes to me that makes it rather strange. ‘1854’, in my opinion, is not their best one. “If you wanna stomp on me, I’m gonna stomp on you” is not exactly Keats, is it? Also, I disagree with it, but that is another matter (but it does effect the enjoyment of the song, naturally).
The title track is the last track on the album, an album that borders on feeling a tad too long for my liking. It clocking in just under the one hour mark is rather surprising to me.
The track ‘Omega Dog’ starts it off as a real indie-rock anthem. The rock especially coming from the searing guitar at the end, which is not too shabby. The guitar really gets a lot of burn on this album. ‘Omega Dog’ is perhaps the epitome of The Dears as a band: epic rock with those distinctive vocals by Lightburn sneering about something or another. Those guitars are definitely nice to hear.
‘5 Chords’ starts off with the lines “Father, up in heaven” and at one point continues with “mother, here on earth”. It sounds more uplifting than the previous song, the music that is. Not Lightburn. He does pour his heart out though. To be fair, some of the lyrics do sound a bit trite, but because of Lightburn’s vigour he gets away with more than other people.
‘Blood’, I mean, the title alone gives away the mood no? Again the guitar is something which immediately jumps out. It basically matches Lightburn’s punch, and here it is kind of noisy, kind of old-fashioned pedal heavy it sounds. This is offset with acoustic play. ‘Thrones’ seems a bit, well, “epic”, but not in the good sense. It has more of a mainstream mood than for example the album’s opener.
‘Lamentation’ really sounds like a lamentation. Maybe too heavily so with lines as “Show me some mercy / show me that you care”. Not sure what I think about the backing vocals going “oee-oh-oeh-hoee”. But blimey, at the end it does go a bit over the top if you ask me, with the increased volume on the backings and the overall sound of the music. By the look of the running time, ‘Torches’ is kind of a transition song, and it is, an instrumental composition to be more exact.
‘Galactic Tides’ is a slow song where Lightburn goes into falsetto mode. I do still love his voice, have always loved it. Nice guitar again, but this time obviously not like at the start, but suitable for a ballad. But again much time for it, almost old school. The same backing vocals as on ‘Lamentation’ crop up though, apparently those were in the blueprint for ballad making for this album. Love the scream at the end though.
We are going in ho-down mode for ‘Yesteryear’, I guess in the same ironic way as on ‘Whites Only Party’. Or perhaps not, I can’t tell on first listen. It is not really a ho-down either, but a catchy acoustic, simplistic riff that has nothing at all to do with the rest of the album. It is something I can see people dance to, which is all right, not sure about it in the middle of a The Dears album though. ‘Stick w/ Me Kid’ starts with the menacing voice of Lightburn. Very cinematic feel this has, with the quick quick strumming in the background moving it forward, and the more talking than singing Lightburn vocals over it. Quite like this one. I think this one has that bit of epicness without compromising on mood and theme.
With ‘Tiny Man’ The Dears take the foot off of the pedal for a moment, with an acoustic guitar and with what sounds like a sort of country/slide guitar accompanying the vocals. At one point I do hear “Hey sister, go sister” for a moment, which he isn’t saying at all, but the diction was so alike that’s what I heard! That would’ve been totally wicked. Madness, but wicked.
“Closed my eyes and found you”, Lightburn sure mixes up the heartfelt statements with some rather trite stuff sometimes. Maybe on this song you don’t get the heart that you do hear in other songs, which makes some of these lines like “I’m just a boy searching for love” rather meh. I do like the line “Was it a massive war of the classes or a passing thought” on the next song, called ‘Unsung’, though. This song, too, has some rather “mainstream” moments where it perhaps is all a bit too bombastic, and it is just the mood it exhumes to me that makes it rather strange. ‘1854’, in my opinion, is not their best one. “If you wanna stomp on me, I’m gonna stomp on you” is not exactly Keats, is it? Also, I disagree with it, but that is another matter (but it does effect the enjoyment of the song, naturally).
The title track is the last track on the album, an album that borders on feeling a tad too long for my liking. It clocking in just under the one hour mark is rather surprising to me.
Conclusion:
Before listening to the album I read some of the reviews. As said, some are very positive, others are rather scathing. And I can see both sides of the coin, especially because I think this album embodies both sides of the coin. It has some really vintage The Dears moments, and some of the tracks are absolutely up there with their better work. For me personally I’m thinking ‘Stick w/ Me Kid’ for example, or some of the heavy guitar songs. A guitar that, on occasion, really complements the vocals of Lightburn, who singing wise also puts on a great display of heartfelt delivery.
However (you knew this was coming didn’t you?), I agree with for example the Pitchfork review when it says that some of the songs just feel a bit too mainstream epic. There is just a vibe in some of the songs which really feel very much like those songs that bands play for massive audiences and massive people can listen to, for the wrong reasons. Some of the songs they seem to compromise on theme and vigor in favor of – what is it? – basically a sound for daytime radio. And that compromise is unfortunate, in my opinion. With that said, I don’t think it is as bad an album as Pitchfork does, and I don’t think it is a complete return to form. I think this album has some good songs but is dragged down by tracks that have this feel of mainstream radio instead of that heart on sleeve feel I love The Dears so much for.
Before listening to the album I read some of the reviews. As said, some are very positive, others are rather scathing. And I can see both sides of the coin, especially because I think this album embodies both sides of the coin. It has some really vintage The Dears moments, and some of the tracks are absolutely up there with their better work. For me personally I’m thinking ‘Stick w/ Me Kid’ for example, or some of the heavy guitar songs. A guitar that, on occasion, really complements the vocals of Lightburn, who singing wise also puts on a great display of heartfelt delivery.
However (you knew this was coming didn’t you?), I agree with for example the Pitchfork review when it says that some of the songs just feel a bit too mainstream epic. There is just a vibe in some of the songs which really feel very much like those songs that bands play for massive audiences and massive people can listen to, for the wrong reasons. Some of the songs they seem to compromise on theme and vigor in favor of – what is it? – basically a sound for daytime radio. And that compromise is unfortunate, in my opinion. With that said, I don’t think it is as bad an album as Pitchfork does, and I don’t think it is a complete return to form. I think this album has some good songs but is dragged down by tracks that have this feel of mainstream radio instead of that heart on sleeve feel I love The Dears so much for.
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