“Roller,” the title track of tvfordog’s newest album, is unmistakably similar to 54*40—a picked electric guitar with Neil Luckett’s sounding a lot like 54*40’s Neil Osborne’s slightly mournful, hard rocker balladry that’s beautiful (along with the backup harmonies) but not necessarily a polished-over sound. After the verse, the band kicks in so you don’t forget that tvfordogs has the full Emo power. The song, though, gains its strength, because those rocking wordless choruses trade off with those more tender verse sections.
The UK’s tvfordogs has these moments of reminding me of Canada’s 54*40—a band which has punk attitude, hard rock glimmer, but really an American Band Rock sound which means no part of the band stands out from any other. Even as tvfordogs throws out the power, this isn’t lead guitar-centric rock. Mark Homer’s bass brings out the song pattern on the verses of “Everlasting Sun” before the electric guitar of Luckett mimics the pattern on the choruses. The vocals, especially harmonies from Mark Homer (bass) and Paul Jarrett (drums), show the rounded out dimensions in the band’s sound.
Roller begins with “The Universe is Blue,” though, which lands them squarely among the Emo area of the Hard Rock section of the Spectrum. Paul Jarrett’s drums carry the almost out of control tempo of “Natural Science Fiction,” and the track challenges the idea that Jimmy Eat World was really unleashing something more than pop. Tvfordogs actually takes the sound farther around the edge, creeping more towards bands we might have forgotten, bands who took that 90’s grunge-core and took it back to more classic sounds: Mother May I, Grammatrain, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin.
Lyrically, the combination of “Drive” and “Where’s Your God?” later in the album make you go back to your bookshelf, exploring what the scholars, theologians, and mystics have said about issues of forgiveness (“Drive”) and theodicy (“Where’s Your God?” which asks that most difficult of questions, trying to see where God is in our suffering). Luckett as a songwriter comes to bother you in the middle of night with these soul-searching questions—but while you may lose sleep as you pour over your scriptures to find direction, thankfully Luckett has supplied tremendous melodies to the traveling.
Thank you to the tvfordogs and Wampus Multimedia for the review copy.
