(Photo Courtesy of Warner Brothers)The mid-2000s were a time when neon tight jeans weren’t acceptable, but more acceptable than they should ever have been, when awkwardly straightened hair was a normal thing and when lyrics took the backseat to hardcore-dance numbers that helped ease the post-2000s disillusionment.
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Death From Above 1979 owned this world. In fact, they were the elite. While the 2004 debut "You’re a Woman, I'm a Machine" was heralded as a cult classic that managed to beat scene, it’s still a bro-noise album that came out in 2004. DFA 1979’s ability to tap into the social conscience worked then, but fails on their newest album "The Physical World."
"The Physical World" is the 10-years-in-waiting follow-up to "You're a Woman, I’m a Machine" — and it doesn’t miss a beat. DFA 1979 taps into its iconic sound but fails to update its music in a way that makes it relevant to today. It’s still trapped in the liminal space between art rock with depth and poppy songs guys can fantasize about rioting and partying.
The opening track, “Cheap Talk,” starts hard and fast — and it's only moments into this song that the listener is reminded of DFA 1979’s style. The bass and percussion hit that signature sound with their hard-hitting grooves. It’s a good opener to the album, but the rest of the work fails to really differentiate itself from this original track.
The weirdest track of the album is “Virgins,” a bluesy, White Stripes-sounding jam that gets your head rocking almost immediately in true DFA 1979 style, but it is littered with awkward, sex-driven lyrics. This track symbolizes DFA 1979’s inability to update their music in productive ways.[embed size="compact"] Death From Above 1979 – Cheap Talk[/embed]
That’s not to say that the album does not make an attempt at depth. In “Always On,” DFA 1979 ponders whether or not God would make it in today’s world. Given all of the chaos, it’s an interesting question, but in the grand scheme of the album, it feels out of place. It feels like the musings of a young r/atheism lurker.[embed size="compact"] Death From Above 1979 – Virgins[/embed]
The rest of the tracks continue to lean heavily on DFA 1979’s strengths: grooves, but not at the sacrifice of their artistic integrity. In this context, the album is a complete success. Along with "Cheap Talk" and "Virgins," the instrumentation on “Right On, Frankenstein!”, “Trainwreck 1979,” “Government Trash” and “Gemini” all have the rolling, stressful rhythms that keep the tension high.
Death From Above 1979 is one of those bands that is always going to surprise you. In 2004, they rocked the music scene by introducing more hard-hitting dance music. In 2014, they are trying to carry on that same torch, but with minor updates. The overall riff-age of the album is on par insane and fun, but the lyrics are so deficient and so routine that the album loses its ability to truly distinguish itself as an important work in 2014.[embed size="compact"] Death From Above 1979 – Gemini[/embed]
Reach the reporter at zjenning@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @humanzane
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