Review Summary: dredg combine the ideas of their first two releases with the straight
forward nature of their third album and the result is a good album with a lot of inconsistencies
dredg had a lot to live up to when they were making their follow up to 2005's solid Catch Without Arms, a departure from previous efforts such as the seminal El Cielo and raw beginnings of Leitmotif. With three albums that all differ stylistically, it would be playing it safe for the band to focus on making something that is sonically similar to their previous efforts. The band simultaneously played it safe but strayed into danger with 2009's The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion. The safety was found in sticking to the original format of a concept release, the danger in transforming (once again) stylistically.
From the first listen I could tell that the album had its perks and its qwerks, both of which were immediately clear to me on the first track, Pariah. The song kicks in with a nice vocal melody with the classic dredg trope of dreamy guitars in the back, which is suddenly kicked upside the head with a riff that sounds nothing like what I would expect from the band. The song follows rather simple song structure which isn't inherently bad; the chorus is something that I was really liking in this song a bunch. Although in general I like this song, the simple fact is that I can probably sum up The Pariah in this song alone. Moments like the intro, verse, and chorus all had me singing along while parts like the bridge had me scratching my head.
The problem with these parts that make me scratch my head is not that they are different than my idea of how the band should sound, but rather that some of the moments on this record either sounded bland to me, or that they have actually made me laugh. The most polarizing song on this record for me is Gathering Pebbles; The chorus on this song is possibly my favorite on the whole album, but the verse on this song has made me convinced that the only reason why I sit through the track's nearly 5 minute runtime is the buildup of the chorus and the ending. "I Don't Know" is a track that my dad and I joke around as being the opening to a courthouse show, a joke that has almost completely ruined the song's verses for me, but yet again, as a common pattern, I do find the chorus enjoyable to an extent. "Light Switch" was a song that had made me wonder if I had been listening to a dredg album or a record from an up-coming garage rock band. This time around the interludes (named Stamp of Origins) don't really feel too necessary like they did on previous releases, and most of the time they sound a bit lazy, more than not just consisting of strange keyboards with lead singer Gavin delivering a short vocal performance.
The thing that had bothered me personally most on this album had to have been lead singer Gavin's contribution to this album, almost exclusively lyrically but sometimes melodically. Being a person who usually doesn't care too much about lyrics myself, Gavin has unfortunately broken my one rule on lyrics. From the ridiculous bridge of "Information" in which he narrates a final encounter between a couple in the third person, to the use of "gonna" in Savior, he consistently delivers lines that make me cringe and laugh on occasion. The album is based around ideas of anti-religion and questioning religion, a topic I find boring and something that would have faired well as a single song, rather than a whole album. However, as inconsistent as the rest of the album, he occasionally has a great moment, like in the chorus of "Savior" where he delivers a very solid vocal melody that had me singing along the very first listen through. Another issue is that on the very next track he is on, he belts out a "singing" before every chorus, and a three time repetition of "give it up", effectively making me cringe. It's a pet peeve that I wish I could get past with this record, but I just can't seem to
To imply that the album has tracks that I don't enjoy more than I hate is wrong, and is not the case with most of the songs on this record. The four songs that are instrumental on this album - "Drunk Slide", "Long Days And Vague Clues", "R U O K?", and "Down to the Cellar" are all stellar and very interesting tracks. Down to the Cellar was one that gave me a very strong Leitmotif vibe with the tremolo-picked guitar hanging in the back on the song. "Savior" while having a questionable verse, was a song that stuck out to me quite a bit with a very catchy chorus. The song "Ireland" was a song that stuck out dynamically, reaching quite drum and vocal parts and then booming in other parts of the song, with one part even throwing in a pretty huge chorus. Despite not sounding too much like the band making the album in question, "Light Switch" is a fairly enjoyable track with some neat transitions that give the track a different feel. "Cartoon Showroom" is a more fragile song, mostly just vocals and guitar with some keyboards thrown in there for good measure. I'm really liking the Catch Without Arms feel on this track.
In summery, this album's scheme of gray on the cover is the perfect idea of what this album is personally for me: dredg has been known to make amazing stuff at times, and you don't have to look back far at all in their discography to see this. This album is the gray area of dredg writing material up to par with previous efforts, yet floating towards mediocrity. When the album shines, it shines really well, yet when it fails it fails to the point of laughing personally. The newer direction isn't the best the band could have chosen. Who knows though, maybe in time, I'll appreciate it.
