Sunday, August 14, 2011

Dom - Family Of Love


1 Telephone
2 Family of Love
3 Damn
4 Happy Birthday Party
5 Some Boys

At first glance, Dom don't come across as particularly ambitious. During our Rising interview with the Worcester indie-pop outfit last year, their eponymous frontman mentioned that one of the benefits of living in the Massachusetts town was the lax laws on weed possession. About a month later, they put an ad on Craigslist for what essentially sounded like a band babysitter. In the year and a half leading up to Dom's second EP, Family of Love, they released their debut Sun Bronzed Greek Gods EP twice, the most recent reissue coming from big-dog label Astralwerks. If you didn't get the idea from the bratty, debauched video for "Living in America" (again, the second clip for the song in less than a year's time), the story about how Dom (the person, and band frontman) got lost on tour while tripping on ecstasy should clue you in to how these guys like spending their time.

So, yeah, not exactly the picture of industriousness, these ones, which also means Family of Love's brevity-- five songs in just under 17 minutes-- doesn't exactly encourage high expectations out of the gate. The real (and very welcome) shock, then, is how well-honed those five songs sound. This stuff is packed with detail, both silly (the telephone keypad solo on "Telephone") and ambitious ("Damn"'s sea of golden guitar lines). A few songs bleed into each other, like parts of a larger whole; the album's most straightforward synth-pop cut, "Happy Birthday Party", dissolves into rumpled noise and fluttering flutes towards its close. These are rich, dense-sounding compositions.

The element that makes Family of Love sound like the work of an almost entirely different band is the massive leap in production value. For all its pop acumen, the stumbling point of the homespun Sun Bronzed Greek Gods EP was its scrappy, waterlogged sound, which emphasized the band's juvenile delinquencies at the expense of showcasing the songwriting. This time around, Dom worked with reputed producer Nicholas Vernhes in his NYC-based Rare Book Room studio. His touch lends these slyly complicated pop confections the expansive treatment they clearly deserve, turning the aqueous title track into a stretchy jam reminiscent of the sophistipop outfit Sea and Cake (a band that I would have never thought I'd compare Dom to, but there you go). It's tantalizing to imagine how Dom's previous work would sound through this airy filter-- throwing on Sun Bronzed Greek Gods after listening to this one definitely does the former a disservice.

The improved fidelity also helps with understanding the lyrics. "Telephone" turns a simple cellular connection into something between eroticism and euphoria ("I come alive when you pick up the line"), while "Damn" expounds on the malevolent self-centered attitude previously explored on "Burn Bridges". Potential suitors are tossed aside for the one that got away (and, seemingly, isn't coming back) in the balmy, bar-piano jaunt "Some Boys", which features fellow one-name guest vocalist Emma and works much better than the band's last tepid experiment with outside vocals, "Bowl Cut", with Cults' Madeline Follin. Most emotionally revealing, though, is the EP's floaty title track, which eschews problems of the heart for sentiments on protection and safety through friendship. As is lore, Dom's frontman grew up as an orphan and spent most of his adolescence bouncing around foster homes; "Family of Love" is the first time that he's let the sugary facade crack to reveal his own battered beginnings, as well as his wish for a better, more stable life.

On the other end of the spectrum is "Happy Birthday Party", a call back to the synth-pop glories of their previous work and a silly natal-fixated trifle that will most likely end up soundtracking an episode of iCarly in the near future. The song is goofy and sort of disposable (catchy as hell, too), but it makes perfect sense, since Dom are prone to acting out whenever they can. Living forever is a desire often explored in pop music; I'm not sure that the boys in Dom want to exist for eternity-- if they keep behaving the way that they allegedly do, they won't even come close-- but they're clearly set on making the most of their time while they're here...www.pitchfork.com

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