Review
Dr. Dog
Be The Void

Anti (2012) Brennan

Dr. Dog – Be The Void cover artwork
Dr. Dog – Be The Void — Anti, 2012


These days, few musicians are fortunate enough to have released seven consistently pleasing albums, thrive on live performance, partake in the DIY method of surviving making music for a living and have a blast doing so. The Philadelphia bred Dr. Dog manage to do just this.

Anyone can compare a modern band drawing influences from 60’s and 70’s baroque pop and doo-wop to more prestigious acts such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys. Aside from their stylistic note taking from earlier acts, this is a group who create a tone of their own. Ask anyone familiar enough with their back catalogue and they’ll most likely agree; Dr. Dog sounds like Dr. Dog.

Its no surprise that Be The Void, the group’s second album released on Epitaph sister label, Anti- Records, follows suit with this signature sound. These are twelve songs that pick up right where 2010’s Shame, Shame left off. Opening track “Lonesome” begins as a loose, psych-folk tune, sporting slide riffs and spontaneously shouting “Hey!”

The ensuing “That Old Black Hole” reflects the sort of on-your-toes rhythms fluent in the song writing of guitarists Scott McMicken and Frank McElroy. It’s pop-sensibility makes for a great first impression of Be The Void. “How Long Must I Wait” is a more spread out finger-snapper, bobbing through steady minor chords and led by one of the album’s more favorable melodies.

“Get Away” features one of the band’s most folk-laden choruses, complete with harmonic hums and djembe drum rhythms, supported by violin and strings. Though a delicate tune, bassist Toby Leaman depicts his desire for a better life elsewhere. This longing is evident not only in his weathered crooning, but also in the lyrics, “Oh no, I cant walk around/With my feet off the ground/And when they hit, we’ll run away”, before breaking into the broad aforementioned measure.

There’s fun in the latter half of the record, found in Leaman’s whiskey-soaked howls in “Vampire”, the two-step and fiery tempo in “Over Here, Over There” and fuzzy, future-esque “Warrior Man.” To wrap things up, McMicken closes with “Turning of the Century”, a country-blues number packed with enough twang to have you reaching for the straw hat and suspenders.

Is this Dr. Dog’s best album? Who gives a fuck. It’s another splendid chronicle in the timeline of a band who are utterly timeless. By now, these guys have earned their respected reputation as one endearing, workhorse of a band. One can rest assured, that with each and every offering, these hounds are giving it their all.

8.2 / 10Brennan • February 13, 2012

Dr. Dog – Be The Void cover artwork
Dr. Dog – Be The Void — Anti, 2012

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