Favorite New (to Me) Albums of 2020: Part IV

Part 4 of 5:

Demob Happy - Dream Soda (2015)

Demob Happy is the most recently active band I’ll cover in this series. Hailing from England, the once-four-piece was formed in 2008 and has since released a bunch of singles, a couple EPs, and two full-length albums, the first of which was Dream Soda, a record that rivals Nirvana’s ability to marry abrasive dissonance and accessible harmony.

Since its release, the band has gone on to shed a member, guitarist Matthew Renforth, record a second full-length, and tour with musician Jack White, but so far, Dream Soda has stood the test of time.

What attracted me to this album in particular was the production quality and the producer’s skill at filling out the mix while keeping the instrumentation nicely separated. I like how the guitars often sit at opposite poles of the stereo field, yet the songs on Dream Soda never feel unbalanced.

The vocal harmonies on the album also add a nice touch of texture without ever interfering with the “up front” vocals and instrumentation. I have a feeling the producer was able to achieve this with the use of subtle low-pass filters and a tasteful amount of reverb. My two favorite songs on the album are “Junk DNA” and “Young & Numb.”

“Junk DNA” starts off with an Eastern-influenced guitar riff akin to the one in Nirvana’s cover of “Love Buzz,” while a filtered drum beat plays in the background. It then erupts into a full mix, complete with a screeching lead guitar to top it off.

I absolutely love the contrast in the verses between the tinny guitars and Matthew Marcantonio’s lazy, mellow voice.

The chorus of “Junk DNA” is completely cookie-cutter, but there’s something beautiful about how a poppy chord progression, melodic backing vocals, and tambourine are made to work in an otherwise noisy and jarring song.

There’s a part about three-quarters of the way through the song where the band pauses and then resumes at a much slower tempo, before ramping it back up for the final chorus. This is a theme throughout the album, and Demob Happy is particularly good at fluctuating their tempo throughout an individual song, which is a compositional tactic I don’t usually enjoy in pop or rock music.

“Young & Numb” is Demob Happy at their most aggressive, and it works.

The vocal melody throughout the verse is somehow both ugly and catchy, underscored by a driving bass line and a guitar tone worthy of Nirvana’s In Utero. The harmonized vocals in the first half of the chorus are chilling enough, but Marcantonio really lets loose in the second half, rising to the kind of scream you’d expect from a hardcore band. The song ends with a heavy repeating guitar riff, followed closely by the drums and bass. The band pauses between each loop of the riff, and drummer Thomas Armstrong gradually starts to bridge the gaps with ever-hastening drum fills, until the song stops all at once. It’s a powerful way to bring the song to a close.

I’ve mentioned Nirvana several times in this review because I can’t shake the similarities, but that shouldn’t scare off those in search of originality. Demob Happy certainly takes most of its influence from the grunge era, but they’ve crafted it into something totally new and refreshing, particularly with the use of competing guitar riffs that challenge the ear, as well as an array of textures too complex to be lumped in with bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.

I’d recommend Dream Happy to anyone who wonders what a band with the ambition of Nirvana would sound like with a cultural awareness that more closely depicts the 2010s.

XTC - Black Sea (1980)

This will be the oldest album on the list, by far.

I became aware of XTC years ago while reading about the artists that influenced Travis Morrison of The Dismemberment Plan, but until 2020, I was only familiar with two of their later albums, Skylarking and Oranges & Lemons. I finally got around to exploring the rest of their discography this year and found that I really connected with the albums released during their touring years. (If you aren’t familiar with XTC, there’s a whole story in regards to the second half of their career, which was marked by studio albums only, but I won’t get into that here.)

The one that grabbed me the most was Black Sea, 11 edgy art rock songs released at the peak of their mainstream success in the late summer of 1980. Back in those days, the band was more post-punk than pop, and I really enjoy the stripped-down dual guitars that serve as the core of most of the album, as opposed to the diverse instrumentation present on their later records.

My two favorite songs from the record are “Burning with Optimism’s Flames” and “Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me).”

Primary songwriter Andy Partridge’s skittering, quirky vocals in “Burning with Optimism’s Flames” are straight out of Travis Morrison’s playbook and clarify in a big way how the latter came to be the frontman of The Dismemberment Plan.

XTC’s guitars weave around the bass and drums in a rhythm that’s somewhat hard to follow on the first listen of the song, and the guitar licks in the chorus are enough to make your head spin. What I really love about XTC is how they’re able to take a typical pop song structure like the one in “Burning…” and fill it with riffs and harmonies I’ve never heard before. They were truly some of the most innovative pop songwriters of their time.

“Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me)” was released as a single in late 1980, quickly becoming XTC’s biggest single chart success at the time, and for good reason.

Andy Partridge and bandmate Colin Moulding both took on singing roles in this one, and the contrast couldn’t be more perfect between the harsh avant-garde of Partridge’s verses and the Beatles-esque charm of Moulding’s choruses.

There’s a part before the last chorus where Partridge concludes the song’s bridge with a labored wail, before we plunge back into what sounds like a third verse. Instead, an overdubbed guitar mimics the vocal melody of the prior verses, squealing and hissing along the way. It’s the climax of the song, and it makes me want to headbang as much as any good punk song, despite the fact that it was recorded 40 years ago.

As a rule of thumb, I like to know who my influences were influenced by. It doesn’t mean I’ll necessarily appreciate those artists in the same way, but it helps me put my own artistic ambitions into perspective.

That said, XTC has me hooked. I would recommend Black Sea to anyone with an appreciation for modern punk music who wants to get to know their roots and have fun along the way.