Sitting through the final credits of a movie is exhausting. One would assume that only the people suffering from terminal boredom, or the feeble minded like to sit through it. Yet, we can all understand why those exist. Plenty of people have to work on a movie to get it made.
If you’re one of the few people who like to read through the credits of modern records, you might have been surprised to see that the length of the movie credits now is comparable to the mentions that need to be provided on albums. Who are all those people, and why do they all need to work on one cheesy dancefloor filler? Swan Dive Pity Party must be laughing all the way, seeing as how the artist gets it all done by his lonesome.
“DOGDAD,” SDPP’s debut record is also rather extraordinary in today’s musical climate as it sounds neither over-produced nor lo-fi, neither pop nor grungey. In fact, the songs flow from one to the other like a self-produced pop star fever dream, like the kind of record that big-selling pop singers might make if their producers and managers wouldn’t threaten with filing a lawsuit that challenged their mental lucidity.
Opening track, “Hands on a Hardbody” sounds like Pixies pulling a fast one and covering The 1975. Distorted guitars skip like drunken fratboys running on hot coals. On the other hand, the singing brings a pure tone and sweetness that is violently interrupted in the latter part of the song. It’s all enough to get the listener confused, but that’s a large part of the appeal of the record.
The best alt-rock records work with a healthy dose of perversion, and “DOGDAD” adheres to these principles. “Dewar’s Good Time” sounds almost like a Pavement song that barely leaves the confines of the intro. “Know Me Better” works, once again, against the emotional vocals that find their way very well around the higher register.
“Hospice” splits the difference between punk-rock groves, screamed vocals, and tender melodies. There’s a sense of theatricality and drama that permeates every song on the record. These are the kind of tactics that bands like Placebo liked to use to draw attention to themselves and ones that this debuting alt-rock artist has cleverly picked up on.
Every debut needs a manifesto, and that comes here in the form of the album’s closer, “Swan Dive Pity Party,” a song created from pulsating nervous tension. A tune resembling a low-key panic attack, it delivers the artist’s credo of mysterious songs wrapped in emotionality delivered in a layer of distorted guitars that go from a whisper to a shout at the drop of a hat.
In modern music, it’s hard to pick sides these days. Most artists try to create records that will satisfy as many demographics as possible. And they require the assistance of a giant team to do so. On the other hand, Swan Dive Pity Party know exactly the direction being searched for, and the project required just one person to draw the plan and handle the execution.
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