Dominant Legs – Invitation

Dominant Legs – Invitation
Lefse Records: 2011

I have never experienced such struggle trying to write a balanced, objective review for an album that I thoroughly disliked from start to finish, despite repeated listens to try and find that something…anything…that I liked. That is until I listened to Invitation, the debut album by Dominant Legs. Even Ryan William Lynch’s choice of name is irritating. I mean what the hell are Dominant Legs even supposed to be?

A comment from user Pork Pie on Stereogum sums it up perfectly: “sounds like it was made in Garage Band by a 10-year-old, not a word of it is memorable, not a hook of any sort to be found, and it plods along without any sort of structure until it bores itself to death.”

Each song drones on into the next, and in what I assume is an attempt to be obscure and avoid adhering to any one genre, but in doing so over compensates failing to sound like anything at all. Sometimes disco-esque, evident in “Take A Bow” and “2 New Thoughts About U” complete with incessant jangly “porno” guitars, and sometimes 8-bit synth-pop reminiscent of early Information Society (minus the originality) in “Darling Girls” and “Lady Is So Sleek And Polite”. Add to this, like salt on my already wounded ears, Lynch’s warbled Goat Boy vocals throughout, and you’ve got yourself on awful album that should have Hipsters rejoicing and calling it ingenious.

1 out of 5