Better late than never that I had a good listen to Dr. Dog’s Fate, released this past July and showing up, in December, on a number of Top 10 2008 Album lists. Lists are a particular weakness of this reviewer, but I’ll refrain from divulging my top picks for this year. I can say, though, that Fate is not on my top ten.
Which is not to say Dr. Dog’s latest release is not good. Just the opposite: it is an excellent set of 11 songs. The highest compliment I can pay it is that once I first heard it I have played it over and over, and will continue to. Such is one standard of greatness, repetition. And Fate is a great disc. As for lists, it easily makes my top 25.
Philadelphia-based Dr. Dog is both retro and very much grounded in a current lo-fi, roots-focused musical moment. There are parts of Fate that are faintly reminiscent of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (note especially “My Friend”), both in terms of the group’s organic harmonies and its use of strings and song-transitional effects. It may sound overreaching to make such a comparison, but it’s true. Dr. Dog, to its great credit, also sounds like: The Band; CSN&Y; and My Morning Jacket, the group perhaps most responsible for Dr. Dog’s visibility (Dr. Dog backed up Jacket’s tour a few years ago).
Other influences seep in, too. And yet, Dr. Dog is distinctive, carving out a sound and feel all its own. It’s largely easy going music. Its perfect harmonies and fluttery sounds may on first listen disguise the purity of the band’s musical ethos and gritty workmanship. It may sound effortless, but you know it’s not: Fate is deceptively ethereal, which is discovered only after the second or third listen.
That should not be a problem for anyone; this is a band you’ll want to hear over and over. Then, pick up an earlier work, their best up to Fate, titled Easy Beat.
If Dr. Dog continues to advance musically and stretch their particular blend of the traditional with the whimsy, they’ll be on many more year-end lists.
Article comments
1 - phan
This is a great album. The writing is terrific and the songs blend in and continue throughout with the interesting sounds (trains,etc.) in between songs. It flows, yet, due to 2 distinct lead vocalists and writers, interesting instruments on each song, it doesn't get boring. It's even better to see them perform it live. Fun band.. Dr. Dog fans are very upset that, after all of the rave reviews this year, those same magazines, etc., left it off the best of 2008 lists.