Dehd: Poetry

I’m too old to talk about “the song of the summer,” but I’m also not immune to a banger. So when Dehd starts of their latest studio album, Poetry, with my song of the summer, “Dog Days,” I can’t help but get on board. A hipster, slacker trio that probably doesn’t think Talking Heads are an influence, but they’re just damned wrong. And Cults. No, not The Cult. Cults, the indie pop duo from the 2010s whom I once sat with at Katz’s Deli before a show that was remarkably not bad. Maybe it’s the echo effect. Maybe it’s something else. Not sure.

But honestly, I could go through track by track and name an influence. Light FM Pixies on one tack, maybe like Love and Rockets the next. Okay, that’s a stretch, but you’ll hear it if you listen carefully enough. But mostly it’s pleasant. Really simple drums with some bleeps and bloops and smooth male/female vocals on top of surf-like guitar reverb. Nary a sharp angle to be found. They claim to be from Chicago, but the sound of Brooklyn is all over them. But not like the Grizzly Bear schtuff that make me want to kick them in their nertless nerts.

I guess “Dog Days” was a bit of a feint being the first track on an album. Because the record has very few other bops on it. That’s not to say there aren’t other good tunes here. Quite the contrary; most of the 14 songs are actually really decent. They all have a very loose feel to them. Not in a Pavement, shambling alternative tuning kind of way, but more in an airy low-key way. This — along with the aforementioned simplistic drumming — does give a weird cohesive harmony to the songs. Which wouldn’t normally be something I enjoy.  But it really works here with their laid-back, on-a-cloud vibe. It’s one you can definitely listen to front-to-back while maintaining a specific, chill mood. No skips.