Much like Radiohead’s Thom Yorke chanting “the rain drops” 46 times throughout sit down, stand up Drop Dead, Gorgeous’ voalist (Danny Stillman) seems to latch onto a phrase and shake it until its worth is strewn across the ground before you. This isnt peticularly a bad thing though. I think its a technique used to try and make the music sound personal (…thom yorke just thought it sounded cool) and coming from a post-harcore/emo band, the lyrics are supposed to sound somewhat first-hand. Their 2007 release Worse Than A Fairy Tale contains all the qualities you’ve come to expect from a band like Drop Dead, Gorgeous (which is a pretty nice play on words). The album is wrought with stressed vocals, distortion, seemingly sporatic drumming (something tells me hes just switching between off and on beats too often for my liking though) and a underlying mood of despare. another aspect aided by repetitious vocals.
Fortunatly the album is very well produced and every detail can be heard clearly. had this have been the band’s first album, recorded in someones basement, the extensive keyboard and guitar melodies in 45223 wouldn’t have been audible what so ever. With tracks such as Its pretty hard to beat the king and Bye bye blues its easy to tell that the members of the band communicate well and have a relativle diverse sound compared to most others acts in their genre. The album’s closing track, I want to master life and death, is structed perfectly for the last note on Worse than a fairy tale. The track continues to build up from nothing to a strong and hypnotizing climax thats gradually brought back down to earth with a well thought out piano solo.
Fans of The Devil Wears Prada and The Number Twelve Look Like You should waste no time in running out to add this album to their collection.
