Dillinger Four - Civil War
Rating
RIYL
Rise AgainstBad Religion
Anti-Flag
The Loved Ones
Tracklist
1. A Jingle for the Product2. Contemplate This on the Tree of Woe
3. Parishiltonisametaphor
4. Gainesville
5. Ode to the North America Snake Oil Distributor
6. Minimum Wage Is a Gateway Drug
7. The Classical Arrangement
8. Americaspremierfaithbasedinitiative
9. The Art of Whore
10. Fruity Pebbles
11. A Pyre Laid for Image and Frame
12. Like Eye Contact in an Elevator
13. Clown Cars on Cinder Blocks
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It’s no Chinese Democracy, but six years is a pretty damn long time to wait between albums. So when punk rockers Dillinger Four took that long between their Fat Wreck Chords debut Situationist Comedy and their latest release Civil War, one expected it to be quite the epic undertaking. But unfortunately it’s just an album, and not a particularly inspired one at that.
Don’t get me wrong, the songs aren’t total garbage – they just don’t feel like Dillinger Four. Whereas their earlier stuff was frantic, abrasive, and dissonant, these 13 tracks seem far too safe and straightforward. Older, better D4 material was so dense and chaotic that it took several listens just to figure out exactly what was going on. Here the band seems content to drift dully into streamlined, poppy territory. Some problems can be blamed on the overly glossy production - I have loved this band for years, but even I never wanted to hear all their individual parts so crystal clearly. But a lot of it is missteps in the band’s obvious attempts at growth and change. Guitar and bass parts trade in constantly shifting riffs for minimally strummed repetition, and the two guitars diverge so infrequently that you’d have to read the liner notes to actually notice there are still two guitar players. But the worst offender is singer Erik Funk. His vocals try too hard; they’re simply too melodic with ill-advised “whoa-oh” type of inflections all over the place. The yelling on albums past contributed to the gritty and grimy punk rock-ness of their sound, but these new catchy melodies simply detract from it, dulling the razor sharp teeth of the band. It’s nice to be suckered into singing along, but then you realize that Midwestern Songs of the Americas and Versus God made you lose your voice from screaming along because you had no choice in the matter.
In theory, growth and the branching out of a band’s sound should be a good thing. But while the change-ups inevitably help keep band members interested in their own material, more often than not the shift alienates listeners (it’s how we end up with Foo Fighters albums that sound like Steely Dan and Weezer records that sound like whatever shade of crap Make Believe sounds like). There are more than a few moments on Civil War that recall the best work of the foursome, but almost every time a manic guitar part shoves the song onto the right track, it’s followed up by a bland, breakdown-y bridge or soaring vocal chorus that just screams out to be pogo-ed to by chubby New Found Glory fans. Perhaps an album or two between Situationist Comedy and Civil War, releases that bridged the gap in styles slowly and more deliberately, would have made the shift more acceptable. But in reality, while new listeners might latch onto Civil War, or people who love pop punk a lot more than they ever loved Dillinger Four, longtime fans hoping for another solid entry in the band’s discography are unavoidably left out to dry.
--Jeff Latta
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