Dr. Dog: Be the Void

Rating: 3.75/5  

“Get Away,” a song at roughly the midpoint of Dr. Dog’s new album Be the Void, announces, “Oh no, I can’t walk around/ With my feet off the ground.” I don’t think of the Pennsylvania band’s prior efforts as especially ethereal, but there’s undoubtedly a sense of the indie rock veterans taking a deliberately ramshackle, grounded approach with this latest outing. That dedicated lack of polish is its own treacherous path, of course; it can easily become an annoying affectation. By and large, though, this is the sound of a band with over a decade’s worth of miles on the old tour bus enjoying a spin with invigorating reinvention by embracing the spirit of the offhand. It’s not sloppy or amateurish, but it sure is infused with blithe freedom.

It also sometimes seems like Dr. Dog is delighting in figuring our how closely they can skid toward the stylistic tics of other bands while maintaining their own identity. “That Old Black Hole” is built on a hearty dose of Vampire Weekend’s languid calypso rhythms, and “Vampire” takes aim at that gloomy, angry soul singer vibe Greg Dulli used to routinely pull off on old Afghan Whigs records, coming admirably close to the mark. “Warrior Man” is a buzzier version of the sort of loopy, detailed songs Ray Davies kicked out for the Kinks somewhere around the mid-‘70s when he finally realized that his band wasn’t going to takes their rightful place next to the Rolling Stones in the pantheon of rock gods allowed to play robustly on stadium stages forever. Hearing the lines, “I invented the computer man/ Hubcaps and soda cans,” I can almost see the contraption in question clanging out of the dark.

That last comparison to the Kinks at the twilight of their popularity may be the most pertinent one I can make. This isn’t because the bulk of the album is reminiscent of that band at that time, but because Be the Void, more than anything else, bears the sonic markers of a band that’s decided to ignore whatever pressure drove and limited them earlier. Some previous Dr. Dog albums showed the strain of a band trying to grow and develop to meet expectations. This time out – presumably feeling very secure working with a label that likes to nurture non-conformist artists such as Tom Waits and Nick Cave – they’ve collectively decided, “Fuck it,” and the growth has therefore come naturally. Within the run of 12 tracks they move from the roadhouse blues of “Lonesome” (with the irresistible question and answer, “What does it take to be lonesome?/ Nothing at all”) to the thumping, Strokes-y charge of “Over Here, Over There” and the downbeat, ruminative album closer “Turning the Century.” They go to places that they’ve never quite attempted before, and if the strain sometimes shows, so does the reward.

There’s no uncertainty to the record. On every bit of it, Dr. Dog sounds confident, or at least relaxed, in their shared ability to ignore whatever boundaries they’ve observed before. As evidenced by the material here, they want to make excellent music and have fun in the process, which is probably the best approach any band can take. And in its best moments, Be the Void sparks with the joyous sound of a band surprising themselves.