Alexisonfire – Dog's Blood EP
Record Label: Vagrant Records
Release Date: November 2, 2010
Nearly a decade has passed since their inception in 2001, and Alexisonfire is still writing music with the creative vivacity of a newborn band. Most groups their age settled on a sound to perfect years ago; many more have already run their course and called it quits. But for Alexisonfire, it’s a different story. Always the band to downplay familiarity in favor of reinvention in the studio, their most recent full length, 2009’s Old Crows/Young Cardinals, was their most evolved effort yet, melding sugared melodies with fast and furious punk leanings like they were City and Colour meets Fucked Up.
On Dog’s Blood EP, they push their sonic boundaries even further, to the point where they sound entirely recreated. It’s not that they’ve shed any notion of accessibility for fans of their earlier albums – if nothing else, the title track still stings with jagged riffs and screams. Front man George Pettit has recovered some of his pre-Crisis venom, Wade MacNeil growls with a newfound hysteria, and when Dallas Green coos “In dog’s blood, we will all drown,” we fall in love with his velvet voice all over again. But there’s less of that stuff going on overall. In their place often lie majestic expanses of spacey, bluesy guitars that oscillate between heavy and ambient. The latter halves of the vicious screamers “Grey” and “Black As Jet,” as well as the six minute vocals-less closer “Vex” are full of these moments.
While it doesn’t completely alienate the majority fanbase, Dog’s Blood EP is Alexisonfire advertising themselves to a more mature crowd – one of the rare instances when a band making a genre leap prospers more than they sacrifice. In an interview with Spinner.com, Green mentioned that the EP is built around “completely different-sounding songs and would probably never make it onto a [full-length] record.” Thus, without the pressure to write more accessible numbers, the band probes their potential here, drawing from their diverse influences and inherent talent to produce their most robust effort to date. It’s not common that a group that has penned consistently solid albums for almost 10 years just begins to uncover their maximum ability at this point in their career, but that’s all the more reason to dig into this EP. Now is without a doubt the most exciting time to be an Alexisonfire fan.
As a massise AOF fan i was really looking forward to this, so much so that i was on itunes at midnight to buy it the minute it was unlocked!
I loaded up the first track "Dogs Blood" which i had heard before, so i knew what to expect from this awesome song. But first impressions of "Grey" and "Black as Jet" are mixed. On the one hand im so glad George is screaming properly again, cant tell you how much i missed that on Young Cardinals, but on the other hand, where the hell is Dallas?
Im a massive AOF fan so i can look past that to some degree, the songs are still awesome but they are nowhere near what they could have been if they had just had a bit of Dallas in them. The interplay between George and Dallas' vocals is one of the things i love so much about AOF, its the thing that first got me hooked on them years ago when i first heard "Counterparts and Number Them".
But looking beyond that musically the album is absolutely superb, the instrumentsal track "Vex" is mind blowingly good and its refreshing to hear them write a song like this. I must have listened to it 10 times already!
One thing i though with your review, "Dog’s Blood EP is Alexisonfire advertising themselves to a more mature crowd" - Does it really? Most of the more "Mature" people i know would say the only redeeming factor about AOF is when Dallas sings!
Anyway, great album, albeit with a gaping Dallas shaped hole. Definately one for any AOF fan to buy. Seeing them live again in a weeks time, for the 11th time, cant wait :D
One thing i though with your review, "Dog’s Blood EP is Alexisonfire advertising themselves to a more mature crowd" - Does it really? Most of the more "Mature" people i know would say the only redeeming factor about AOF is when Dallas sings!
"Mature" in terms of songwriting mostly. For the first few albums, they were catering to the "scene" crowd (ie. Underoath, etc.). Now they're adding all these experimental influences.
I can't wait to listen to this. I'm anxious to hear the instrumental track since one of the biggest draws of Alexisonfire is their excellent vocals. Also, I hope they're planning to release another full-length in the next year or two.
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