Dan Mariska and his Boy's Choir out of Minneapolis, sent in their single for a listen a few weeks back. Over at Minneapolis Fucking Rocks Dan talked about how him and his friend spraypainted this cardstock to get that tan color and then screened these in red. Completely mental and I would say has something to do with the attention to detail on this 4 song ultra pop EP from Dan, the lengths he's going to polish and wax and polish again.
A-Side's "Watch it All Unfold" has a poppy bounce with a nice guy vocal from Dan who has a sort of Ben Gibbard vibe or unassuming like Red Jacket Mine's Lincoln Barr. Dan has a similar heavily constructed, foot tapping sound with a slight echo...a great vocal that stays out in front of the minimal, muted groove. It shouldn't be a surprise that this eventually blows up then, but it still is when they turn on the squealing guitar and crashing percussion section. There'a an almost Elvis Costello style of super pop at work, that lean precision that can't help itself. A back and forth of goody two shoes bubblegum until the wave of distortions crash in and this gets unbeliveable noisy to the end. Next up, "Broken Clock" has those dual layered vocals going and indie shine like The New Pornographers maybe ....M Ward? Those are some of the big produced sounds he managed to get in Knol's house last summer...an accomplishment for sure. There's so many layers to these tracks; claps, bizarre hits, tremolo brief guitar, he's a real complex songwriter with a crystal clear vision of pop that catches you off guard with it's jabs at reality.
B-Side's "Tied to the Ground" uses a slow acoustic and a gentle roll snare while Dan compares this person to a kite, it's hard, he's the cord. They can't fly away, the cool synth background just off the starboard of this slow moving ship. Whirring synth sounds, a bot of a downer this side so far, clicking off strings, a nice live performance with scratchy finger changes and this close intimate lyric.
"Stupid Fucking world" lets beefy riff open this up, lyrics about dad, Like Pedro the Lion , lots of regret, yelling at your parents.. Drawing on those big riffs and an in your face vocal about growing up, it's a big world, things are just getting figured out. Sounding Ben Lee....I'm getting it now. Those self engrandizing moments where that tiny world revolves just for you. A little humility here, but then it's so blown out, how could it be anything but an epic orchestra treatment of that pouty episode in the garage last week. That kind of loose loser sentiment. Pissed of when there's nothing to be mad about. Especially when delivered plished and sparkling like this.
Pick this up over at Dan's bandcamp page.
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