I Heard All The Cool Kids Read Books.
I tend to find listeners of punk lie in two separate camps. There are those who care solely about instrumentation and melody. The words sung is not important. Vocals are just another color for the sonic paintbrush. Others hold lazy writing against a band. A good song can be absolutely ruined by a cheesy turn of phrase. They want their songs to be multi-layered, taking multiple listens to form an opinion of what a song may be about. The two bands below are the melding of the two contrasting preferences.
Dog & Wolf
Punk music is at its most interesting when an artist combines various genres to create songs that are unmistakably theirs. Dog & Wolf can best be described as a punk band who doesn’t listen to a ton of punk music. There is a certain country twang that colors many of their songs. Lead singer Kyle Geib creates these “sad bastard” vignettes that any self loathing person automatically recognizes. There is literally a verse that says:
I will wither to nothing
I will atrophy and fade
Before you know it I will disappear
To be a memory, a ghost, remains
You cannot get much more nihilistic than that. But, in listening to Dog & Wolf, the despair doesn’t automatically stick to you like other singer-songwriters. Many of these songs are filled with exuberance and excitement that feels essential to many of the best Dog & Wolf songs. “Potential Satisfaction,” for example, has a swinging chorus that just begs to be belted out. The choruses and refrains are so strong that it doesn’t matter what is being said.
Then, after multiple listens your interests in the hooks may begins to wane. The strongest records tend to be ones that continuously demand you to reexamine your opinions about them. What you may have thought about the B side of the record last week is now completely different. There is a relatable quality to many of Dog & Wolf’s songs. Every person knows that feeling of walking against the wind and how frustrating that can be. Or maybe you relate to filler for the vacancies and low feeling of self worth that comes with being a creator. The most devastating lines pass by so matter of factly; if you’re not paying attention they will pass you by.
Two Houses
Two Houses is the music that you want to scream along with your friends in a bar that smells worse than the garbage can that is sitting in the alley. 2016’s I Feel So Good I Can’t Feel Myself is a lambasting and celebration of your twenties. It is the comedown from years of partying. It is the feeling you get waking up at two in the afternoon asking yourself, “Was it really worth it?”
Mike Boren and Dave Satterwhite are able to weave these narratives that conjure up sense memories and pictures in my head. There is a polarization in the lyrical content between the two songwriters that is fascinating to trace. Satterwhite was sobering up and viewing the world he inhabited in a different way. Boren was creating these vignettes that ranged from spending your laundry money on pinball in Labor Day to feelings of low self esteem.
What brings Two Houses all together is their melodic prowess. We can all appreciate a well-written verse, but there must be a certain vocal phrasing that keeps us coming back for more. Two Houses understands this unspoken agreement and really plays around with the idea of where a hook or chorus needs to be. Sometimes it fits typically, breaking up a verse, like in
“Paradise by The MacBook Light.” Other times the verses create this tension that builds to a crescendo in which the sing-along part comes at the very end. “One More For Dom” does exactly this and begs you to move your lips along to the words.
Listen to the playlist below to hear a sampling of the songs listed in the Punk Survey series.
Dog & Wolf Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Bandcamp
Two Houses Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Bandcamp | Soundcloud