By Claire Zhang,
After all these years the music industry still cannot give a clear answer on whether it’s good or bad to work on an album with your childhood hero. We’ve seen enough of Damon Albarn and Adele throwing mud at each other while no one can tell what really has happened. Now we raise the same question here to our young friends from Tokyo, DYGL and their most significant influence, 1/5 of The Strokes, Albert Hammond Jr.. Today DYGL’s debut album “Say Goodbye to Memory Den” is released and I just got myself another living sample for this ultimate question.
I can’t deny my drastic excitement when I first heard the news of Albert Hammond Jr. set to produce DYGL’s debut album. I remember vividly the days of the DYGL guys sharing their admiration for the boundless creativity of The Strokes members as well as their unshakable prominence in American indie rock legend. My hunch was that this would be a seamless collaboration and that’s all. Having met Albert Hammond Jr at one of his solo gigs I was under the impression that he was a very down-to-earth guy, which should’ve guaranteed a smooth and thorough conversation between the young Japanese band and the successful American musician/producer. (Without doubt, language could be a barrier for in depth communication despite DYGL being no green hand in dealing with English speakers). However, after listening to the two pre-released singles I began to have rather mixed feelings. Now, looking at the whole picture, the mixed feelings still hold, but in a mostly positive way.
The opening bomb “Come Together” could have been mind-blowing and full of sparks, but failed. I am prepared to be psyched up to headbang to the bouncy drumbeat but the urge degrades when the artificial scream hits my eardrum. The furious vocal sounds deliberate. Yet the panic of them becoming “just another Brooklyn band” stops immediately when I recognize the spontaneous guitar entry from “Crazy”. The impulse to embrace everything in my eye’s horizon emerges and I’m not alien to this impulse because this is the typical DYGL sound that I know. Still and all, the familiarity leaves me again as the already jolly “Let It Sway” takes a step up to an allegro but the vocal falls through by trying too hard to be Julian Casablancas in The Voidz.
“Thousand Miles” is one of the few remixes that I favor over the old versions. Rich layers are applied on top of the thin tune and empower the song with profound emotion by presenting an imago of tender waves, warm wind and salty air. The accumulation of meticulous guitar lines gradually escalates to a new level of thickness when a stiffer drum pitches in, and fades out in the same exquisite chords yet still leaves a lingering charm.
As a single, “Let It Out” does not seem to have much of a presence if you compare it with the preceding release “Waste of Time”. The misfortune is that the new version of the latter killed the touch of being within reach of the band, thus the magic is lost. “Let It Out” on the other hand, keeps it real by conveying the long stretches of pavement and progression without hurting the impetuous vent.
“All I Want” is an old track from “EP #1” originally named “All the time”. The only reason for a name change that I can think of is if the original name was used, there would be three songs ending with the word “time” (call me a data analyst). Other than that I also noticed some slight edit on the lyrics, not only of this song but of the whole album. Most conspicuously, the punch line in the original version was, “All I want is to marry an American girl.”. In the new album version it’s now, “All I want is to make a little noise in this world.”, which completely turns the song to a distinct direction. I am quite upset by this change as I heard from the band that “American girl” was meant to symbolize the Statue of Liberty, leaving alone the fact that “American girl” is already very telling and suggestive in terms of the phrase itself.
You can put “Happy Life” in any albums from bands like Surfer Blood or Splashh without feeling that it’s out of place. It’s just one of those intimate tracks. It can be a cozy rainy afternoon. It can be a last scene of an empty dance floor. It can also be a schoolgirl holding a melting ice cream. “A Matter of Time” carries on the cushy aura. Only this time DYGL puts on the mask of Mac DeMarco and waves us a goofy salute.
To my surprise the last piece on the playlist is a “cheesy” love song, and it becomes my best pick of the album. The liquidity of the guitar sounds so sublime and unreal that it speaks for my ideal form of pop, a fusion of the cheerful 80s vibe with a grain of saccharine sorrow to perfection. The refrain, “I’ve got to say it’s true, I’ve got to say it’s you.”, is singularly straightforward, but catches me off guard.
I am not saying this album is a backward step. On the contrary, it stands in my top 3 albums of 2017. But again, I had very high hopes for this album as a consequence of the far-fetched collaboration and correspondingly, it does display maturity to an extent that it almost sounds like a “second album”, instead of a debut. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with growing up a little, but decisions need to be made wisely on whether you want someone else to scissor you a way out or you, yourself, to inflate enough to burst out while you are still in the cocoon.
Tracklist:
- Come Together
- Crazy
- Let It Sway
- Take It Away
- Thousand Miles
- Boys On TV
- Don’t Know Where It Is
- Let It Out
- Feel the Way
- All I Want
- Happy Life
- A Matter of Time
- Waste of Time
- I’ve Got to Say It’s True
This summer DYGL will perform at more than 30 locations in Asia including big festivals like Fuji Rock and Summer Sonic to support their new album. More North America dates will be added in the Fall. Check out if they are coming to your city!
