Times New Viking – Dancer Equired
Merge Records: 2011
Back in 2008, Rip It Off established Times New Viking as one of the progenitors– and experts– of the lo-fi revival. They paired sugary melodies with tangible grit of bootstrap recordings. Their melodies were sweeter, their guitars louder, their whole aesthetic more fully realized than many of their contemporaries. It makes sense, then, that the band had no problem breaking (just a little bit) out of that shell on their latest record, Dancer Enquired. On Dancer, the Columbus trio attempts to fight out from under the omniscient curtain of fuzz that obfuscated some of their songwriting talent.
Jared Phillips and Beth Murphy have always had a way around a dirty guitar lick, but with the new breathing room they’ve afforded themselves, their voices are now a genuinely affecting portion of their music, as opposed to something you’re fighting through the static to enjoy. Example: “California Roll”‘s 98 seconds showcase Murphy beating Beth Cosentino at her own game and their note-for-note doubling on “Ways to Go” is summer soundtrack stuff. The room also allows Murphy’s simple keyboard licks to add a ton of depth to these songs. Check the playful riff on the excellently titled “Fuck Her Tears”, which expounds the energy of the semi-truck of a track.
But the second half of the album is strangely tedious. Starting with the three-minute-plus (!) track “Downtown Eastern Bloc”, it seems like the band forgets that their best gear is sixth. The slew of slower songs to end the record turns the first half’s full-bore fun into a bit of a slog. “Fuck Her Tears” breaks up that monotony nicely, but really just highlights how good the first half of the album is. It blows by with the furious energy of the best Guided by Voices albums, and proves the decision to leave their haze behind an inspired one. But like their longest songs, the longer Dancer Enquired drags on, the more you just want to go back to the beginning.
3.5 out of 5