Dr. Dog - Shame, Shame reviews
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| Avclub |
 Philadelphia’s Dr. Dog has caught praise and derision for seeming to exist in three modes, alternately replicating The Band, The Beach Boys, and The Beatles. But the first artist listeners might think of upon hearing “Where’d All The Time Go,” off the quintet’s sixth album, is The Flaming Lips. The song features the same reedy croon as Wayne Coyne, the same wispy, watercolor keyboards that blanketed The Soft Bulletin, and the same sort of smiley, existential musings on death as “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate.” That last point is key: Shame, Shame draws from the well of rocker inspiration that is early-midlife bewilderment at mortality. It’s an album of confusion and carpe diem, which might explain why its two best traits are its psychedelic bent and liveliness.
The title track finds the band’s vocalists testifying about youth wasted on self-pity; “Later” frenetically inhabits the mind of a paper-pusher exploding from delayed gratification. “Unbearable Why” sums it all up, thematically and musically: The tambourine jiggers unhurriedly, a three-chord piano line pops in like a nagging question, and the lyrics speak of an oncoming storm bringing “a thrill in the air.” The guitars rise in a triumphant solo at the conclusion after a song’s worth of woozy, doo-wop chorus asking, in part, “Why?” Shame, Shame celebrates the inevitable unknowable; living in suspense, it seems to say, can be pretty freeing....full text |
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| Pastemagazine |
Considering how friendly Dr. Dog’s music is, it’s hard to believe the band has proved so divisive. Hating on the Philadelphia quintet is like beating up the neighborhood kids who spend all summer riding bikes and building forts—you may feel older and wiser, but who’s having a better time than them? The band’s sun-drenched, feel-good vibe belies songs as full of personal conviction as those of any acoustic-strumming bleeding heart. If anything, Dr. Dog’s edge is that they don’t have one—this is unabashed, love-each-other pop from a band that once named an album We All Belong and filled it with music proving just that.
Shame, Shame is the band’s sixth LP and its first release on independent mainstay Anti- after leaving boutique label Park the Van, but there’s no sign here of bigger and better production. Compared to 2008’s glossy jewel Fate, this album actually seems like a step away from the band’s usual sheen and accessibility. These 11 tunes stretch out over 40 minutes like a yawn after a good nap, and they’re nearly as refreshing. Bassist Toby Leaman’s gruff, bluesy howl and guitarist Scott McMicken’s high, wide-eyed tenor have long split the band’s songs like fraternal twins—easy to distinguish, but distinctly of the same stock. On Shame, Shame, McMicken’s songs really shine, his McCartney-ish melodies overshadowing Leaman’s moodier offerings. The album’s best track, “Where’d All the Time Go?” finds McMicken cooing about a girl who “gets dressed up like a pillow, so she’s always in bed” to a mellotron undulating like high tide, a wave of backing harmony and a set of quick guitar licks, all playing like a Pet Sounds B-side. And there ain’t no shame in that....full text |
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| Rollingstone |
| "Where'd all the time go?" asks a fuzz-guitar-strafed ballad on Dr. Dog's latest. The Philadelphia quintet have spent much of their career looking back to the pop of the Beach Boys and the Beatles, and the woodsy Americana of the Band. But on their fourth studio album, retro flavors are scattered smartly and sparingly: a George Harrison-like lead guitar here, a swooning Brian Wilson-style chorale there. With co-producer Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliott Smith) at the helm, Dr. Dog don't sound like mere imitators — they sound like an unusually hook-savvy indie band whose taut, touching songs about friendship ("Jackie Wants a Black Eye") and life on the road ("Station") begin as straight pop rock and take thrilling turns into psychedelia....full text |
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