REVIEW: Dove Lady - One

Laura Kerry

I remember the surprise I felt when I first learned that Washington, DC has a history of fostering an influential punk and hardcore scene. To me, the nation’s capital meant pristine monuments and the respectable act of governance (ha). It was thrilling to learn that under all that marble, people had been airing their feelings and making noise.

Andrew Thawley and Jeremy Ray live in DC, and their band, Dove Lady, shows signs of the post-hardcore scene from which it sprung. Their latest album, One—the first full-length after a series of alphabetized EPs, A, B, C, and D—begins with an explosive oscillation of fuzzy guitar. Drums come in, crashing wildly, and the vocals emerge as a monotone yelp. The start of the opener, “7777,” promises to deliver on the DC legacy. Soon, though, Dove Lady pulls back. “7777” morphs several times, changing from the harsh pulse of punk guitar to smoother, quieter modes and back again.

Punk is only one edge of Dove Lady’s experimental territory on One. Throughout the album, they transition from post-hardcore to jazz, and even to a moment of R&B smoothness on “Carl Salesman.” And when they do get loud, the duo never fully loses control. Rhythmic and tight all the way through, they only skirt the edges of chaos before dissolving into calm—a move that's as exciting as total mayhem. Dove Lady are masters of tension and release.

Such mood swings happen not only in the sound, but also in the lyrics. “In essence,” Dove Lady said in an interview with GoldFlakePaint, “One is about accepting and forgiving one’s self for all of life’s mistakes; it is a sonic representation of moving on from the past and into the present.” Naturally, that is a fraught process. The album reflects that in moments of anxiety: “I'm scared of the way that you might look at me If you hear what I’m thinking / I’m tired of uncertainty,” they sing on “What’s Wrong Roberta,” and “Sometimes I get so lonely and I don’t know” on “Carl Salesman.” For all of its musical trickery, One’s sentiments are delightfully earnest.

And Dove Lady is never more delightful and earnest than in the moments of catharsis that lend the album a feeling of simultaneous gravity and lightness. “It’s time / Won’t be long / ‘Til I’m comfortable,” they sing over a catchy guitar melody in the appropriately named “Uplifting Song.” At the end, the track reaches a satisfying release with the line, “It’ll all be ok.” And just as One begins with the roar of guitar, it ends with another loud statement. “Anything that I want / I can get if I try,” they sing on the closing track, “Boar Switch,” before the instruments and vocals swell, coming closer to spilling over into chaos than anywhere else on the album.

A product of their city but with a strong sense of their own sound, Dove Lady makes music how they want to.

REVIEW: june gloom - fake problems

Kelly Kirwan

Jesse Paller wades into shades of gray on his latest album, fake problems, with low-key melodies and lingering guitar notes living like surf rock in the shade. It’s a mellow moodiness that seeps between his nine tracks, an aura of Elliott Smith and the influence of his breathy, delicate vocals permeating throughout. Paller’s music is an intersection of reverb and introspection, a niche that is aptly conveyed by his solo moniker, june gloom. It’s a nod to a West Coast weather phenomenon (Paller is a California native, turned DC transplant, turned up-and-coming Brooklyn-dweller), in which cloudy skies set in just as the season changes to summer.

It was this polarity, of freedom and malaise, that perhaps came to mind as he neared the last two years of college on the East Coast, describing a sense of listlessness that came to be enveloping. fake problems became a conduit for healing, or at least a kind of exorcism, in which Paller could stitch together his feelings of disconnect and make sense of them with a chord progression. What’s even more interesting about his latest release, aside from its personal weight, is that in the past Paller has mainly spearheaded percussion. He’s handled the drums for bands like Tall Friend and Boon, but took this time to write, play, record, and mix each facet of fake problems himself—this was his ghost, and he set it free.

The opening track, "get free," begins with a conversation that’s hard to pick up—a quiet room and casual exchange, as if we’re meant to be flies on the wall, oscillating between listening and letting our minds wander aimlessly. It then goes into a simple, repetitive guitar riff, which stands alone, dredging up a sense of intimacy that seems to move in the same way as sadness. The lyrics are a single stanza, Paller’s voice barely a whisper in the beginning, “Gotta get free from the people around me / Then maybe I won’t be as lonely.” The second half of the song becomes more earnest, the vocals swelling to a height that has the desperation of a last-ditch effort. “I’ll miss you but not like you miss me,” he notes, and the irony that’s filled the nooks and crannies of this song reveals itself—that Paller seems to have figured out the alienation he feels towards others is tied to an alienation he feels towards himself.

Then there’s "swampmouth," which also relies on a twangy guitar strum, the riff marked by a nasally pitch at the end that almost sounds as if the note veered off-key. It fits with the track’s direct aesthetic, which follows a list of ailments and a dose of apathy: “I wake up / I hear bells / And the sunlight on my face / Burns like hell.” Paller’s voice is the personification of fatigue, the melody joined by a light drumming and soft pattering of cymbals. Towards the end, the song grows to feel inviting, a bed to rest our weary heads that isn’t as weighed down with melancholy as one might expect. It's fake problems in microcosm, accented with angst and a cathartic outlet—shades of gray we can get behind.

REVIEW: Flasher - Flasher EP

Raquel Dalarossa

Washington, DC’s Flasher describe their self-titled debut as a soundtrack to “what's happened to the city before and since.” Listening through the seven-track EP, the intention comes across pretty clearly. Flasher’s high-octane, new-wave sound captures pulsing urban energy perfectly, and the band’s lyrics, in aptly-named songs like “Tense” and “Throw It Away,” abound with anxiety. The resulting product is an often chaotic, though satisfying punk release that sonically dwells on darker aspects of modern life like feelings of meaninglessness, frustration, and despair, while sounding hopeful and empowering at the same time. 

Flasher is comprised of bandmates Taylor Mulitz and Emma Baker, on guitar and drums respectively, who are both also members of the post-punk outfit Young Trynas. In Flasher, they’re joined by bassist Daniel Saperstein, pulled over from the bands Bless and Trouble. The newly-formed trio came together out of a desire to depart from each of their established sounds, though they clearly bring their collective experience and new wave inclinations to the fold. It’s easy to recognize a loose connection between Young Trynas and Flasher, for example, but certain nuances make them two completely different animals; while a Young Trynas song thrashes about with brash guitar riffs, Flasher’s sound is far more rhythmic and smooth.

This is particularly evident on tracks like “Make Out,” where we get a catchy guitar riff and even pace. Meanwhile, final track “Destroy” smacks of The Cure, with a melodic, bright tune. There’s a loose and liberated feel to the EP that seems a product of how this group came together. The trio are all good friends—it turns out Mulitz and Baker are actually roommates—and so Flasher feels unrestrained, as though they are producing music as much for themselves, and each other, as they are for any sort of wider audience. It all feels satisfyingly unaffected. 

“Tense" is an effortless standout, beginning with a distorted bass line before a synth riff, which rings a little of Joy Division’s “Isolation,” smooths out the sound. Mulitz croons over the music while Saperstein accompanies with chants in the background. The co-vocalists meet with the line “Trying to reach through / Trying to get through.” The song gives the sense of standing amid an enormous crowd, yet you remain distant, safe and comfortable within your own head. It’s oddly soothing. Elsewhere, “Erase Myself” features delicate guitar plucking and subsequently soaring riffs that come off as invigorating, even optimistic, but Mulitz adds a dark angle with the lyric “I’ll erase myself / To release myself.”

Thoughtful lyricism paired with melodic solos, visceral instrumentation, and a very late-'70s/early-'80s lean give Flasher’s particular brand of punk a special air. With the band members tied to a number of other projects, it’s difficult to say whether we’ll be seeing more from this group, but for now their EP is a strong one-off that will hopefully lead to more releases.