The best way to
describe Dance Gavin Dance’s Downtown
Battle Mountain II is “a chaotic sort of confusion,” as screamer Jon Mess
said in a recent interview for Alternative Press. Initially, this album sounds
like just a lot of noise, but it really is a much more sophisticated
composition of disjointed sounds
Meant to be a
continuation of 2007’s Downtown Battle
Mountain, Downtown Battle Mountain II has the complicated guitars,
incoherent screaming, and soulful vocals that listeners expect, like on “Elder
Goose” and “Swan Soup,” but succeeds in standing on it’s own and not becoming a
carbon copy of the previous album.
Something Dance
Gavin Dance is especially good at is taking sounds-vocal and instrumental-that
shouldn’t go together, and create a complete song. “Heat Seeking Ghost of Sex,”
one of the best tracks on the album, layers so many different sounds together.
At one point, Mess is screaming and Craig is speaking the same lyrics, which
makes for an interesting affect. “Previously Poncheezied,” with Jonny Craig’s
vocals layered with guitarist Will Swan’s rapping, explodes into a completely
different song by the middle.
This album is
really funky, making some moments sound straight out of the 1970’s, especially,
“Blue Dream” and “Thug City.” The best representation of the entire album,
though, comes with “The Robot with Human Hair Pt 2 ?.” This track combines
every element Dance Gavin Dance has been known for, and if you were going to
listen to only one track on this album, this would be the one to choose.
On first listen, Downtown Battle Mountain II makes no
sense. It takes a while to figure out what the hell is going on, but this may
be why Dance Gavin Dance is appealing in the first place. Super complex guitar
parts, Jon Mess’s random screaming about things like pie and basketball, and
Jonny Craig’s unrelated lyrics and soulful vocals somehow come together to
create a complicated, confusing, but really compelling album that does not
disappoint.
4.5/5
http://www.alterthepress.com/2011/03/album-review-dance-gavin-dance-downtown.html
