El Dog - The Lamps of Terrahead

This is a pleasant surprise. Seemingly picking up the torch laid down during the unfortunate demise of Aerogramme, El Dog don't so much wear their hearts on their sleeves as bleed their inner emotions out through their pores, wrapping their introverted frustrations in layers of Smashing Pumpkins-style distortion. Eschewing traditional song structures for a more cinematic scope, their songs often pass through vast chasms of huge riffs, before settling into whispered intimacies that push the quiet-loud dynamic to its very limits. While El Dog cite Death Cab's Transatlanticism as a point of reference, the pseudo-poetry spouted by Ben Gibbard is instead replaced by a to-the-point lyricism that cuts the bullshit; while Gibbard creates characters, El Dog can't escape the strictures of their own apparently messy and awkward lives. If music is best when it mirrors life experience, then El Dog should be congratulated for putting it all on display, warts and all.