Dance Gavin Dance-The Death Star Album

Oh Dance Gavin Dance...What happened? I really wanted to like this album. I really really did.

I didn't even hear about this band until I heard the song Uneasy Hearts Weigh the Most, a song from this album which features the controversial new singer Kurt Travis. After hearing this song, I began listening to the album Downtown Battle Mountain. Simply put, I fell in love. The music was extremely creative and really stuck with you. Some time passed and the band began to post new songs on their Myspace from The Death Star Album and I continued to be impressed. I really like Kurt Travis' voice and melodies. They are much different from former singer Johnny Craig's, but they are equally as good.

Now to get down to the actual review. I'm going to do this a little differently. Instead of going through the songs in order, I'm going to review the songs that I think actually deserve to be called songs. In my opinion, everything else on this album is just so bad it can be lumped into one category: Noise.

And on that note, let's get started...

The album starts out promising with Alex English. This song is very impressive and seems like the natural next step the band should take in making music. It maintains that "controlled mayhem" feeling of Downtown Battle Mountain, while introducing the Circa Survive-esque vocal melodies of Kurt Travis which mesh well with Jonathan Mess' screams.

A word about Jonathan Mess. I think his screaming is absolutely horrible. I think it was horrible on Downtown Battle Mountain as well. What made it work though is that the band knew how to use it and made it more of a background noise than a lead vocal. They seemed to screw that up on the majority of this album though.

The next song that is actually good is Caviar, which features Chino Moreno of the Deftones. The band takes a bold new direction with this song. The music is much slower and ambient than usual. Travis' vocals are haunting and Mess' screams do well to fill in the gaps. Moreno's cameo, while minimal, is also very welcome here. This song is just really well written and it seems like they put a lot of thought into its composition.

Another great song on this album is Me and Zoloft Get Along Fine. As with Alex English, this song keeps the "controlled mayhem" feel that Dance Gavin Dance is known for. Travis really shows what he can do here. Everything comes together so well on this track that you can't help but sing along.

The Robot With Human Hair Pt. 3 is also fantastic. It's Dance Gavin Dance showing off their more melodic side, while still keeping things chaotic. They stick to their guns here and keep the screams to a reasonable amount and focus more on the melodies of Travis' clean vocals. The song starts off frantically, but it becomes a much more melodic affair after about the first minute. The high notes Travis hits at the end are also really impressive.

Finally, we come to Uneasy Hearts Weigh The Most, the most melodic song I've ever heard the band play. This was the first song I heard by Dance Gavin Dance and I absolutely love it. It's so incredibly catchy, it's scary. Will Swan really shreads on this track too. His licks are just straight up awesome. The gang vocals in the pre-chorus are catchy and the appearance by Nic Newsham from Gatsby's American Dream is a welcomed one. This song only has one breakdown that uses Mess' screams. It's a perfect fit to break up the melodic pace of the song and it's really cool. Why couldn't the rest of your album be this good Dance Gavin Dance?

You may be asking yourself: "Wait a minute Jake, it sounds like you really did like this album." Unfortunately this is not the case. Remember earlier when I said Mess' screaming is absolutely horrible, but the band knew how to use it well? Well on the other eight tracks of this album, they really blew it. These eight tracks include: Buffalo!, Burning Down the Nicotine Armoire Pt. 2, Hot Water On Wool (Reprise), Hot Water On Wool, People You Know, Reprogramming Mental Preprogramming, Rock Solid, and Skyhook. Come on Dance Gavin Dance, you're way better than this. It's as if on they recorded these songs thinking that Travis wasn't going to be their full time singer, so they gave him minimal parts. People You Know is just Mess screaming random sentences. It's hard to listen to. It ends with him screaming for about thirty seconds without any music behind it. Why? I can't think of anyone who enjoys just listening to someone scream. Mistake number 1. Also the music is completely uninspired on these tracks. I think the band just got kind of lazy and wanted to get the album out in time to do some touring.

The first five tracks that I mentioned all have something in common. These were the songs the band put on their Myspace to show off the new album. There's a very good reason for that. The other songs are just so bad I think they were embarrassed to post them on the internet. Since this album Mess has left the band. They have a new album coming out this June, so keep your eye out for my review of that. Hopefully they are warmed up now and can really show us what they can do.

The Damage:



2 out of 5 Mustaches