When Pride Parade’s Dose landed in my hands, it came with no regards whatsoever, just a ripped review with a RIYL containing Shellac’s name. Recommended if you like Shellac. I like Shellac. A lot. So, I took a chance on it, and have been reward with a raucous and concentrated rock album. Even at the lazy moments, the songs advance and retreat awaiting their perfect chance to attack like a coiled snake.
This is the point where a normal review might lament the loss of rock bands like this one, but I don’t believe Pride Parade’s sound was ever gone. It’s just really hard to pull off and especially hard to sell live. It’s not aggressive bands that are hard to find, it’s ones that are emotionally capable of writing intelligent music and lyrics while screaming/singing with conviction. How many bands scream about credit debt or fishing trips convincingly? How many analyze the merits of drinking to forget? How many use a sweet harmonica opening to introduce a driving riff accompanying a short, angry song about a girl? How many could, the way I am describing them, double as a country band? Not to say that these dudes could open for Miranda Lambert or anything, but the point of these songs is not to aspire, conspire or inspire; these songs just sound awesome.
Of course, that is conjecture. I could have just as easily said that they had a sprawling landscape of riffage or some such other bullshit, but to return to the main point– when did it become cliché to say something rocks? Let’s simply say it together: this shit rocks. From the opening riff on “Just As God Made Me” and the creepy vocal doubling on “Chump Change” or the absolute destruction of “If You See Her, Say Hello” and “Keep It Tight” to the last beautiful licks on “Fishers of Men,” this shit rocks. It is the angle of rock-and-roll to do just that. The Shellac comparison is certainly valid, but let’s hope they put out an album more than once every 431 years.
Now, let’s go ahead and tell you that the album is free (Pride Parade is accepting donations). Just go here and you win.
And, finally, let’s conclude with all the buzzwords no one wants: dirty, southern, walls of guitars, hard, destructive force, drawl, concise, sprawling, nasty, 2001, 1999, the nineties, post-(add word), simple, screamo leanings, plainspoken, angry, bitter, insane, production, hard. There’s more, but they are equally boring. Just know that I wanted nothing to do with them and I am writing this review. Which means I have given 10 (way more, actually) listens to an unheralded group in which I had no interest. None. I just saw an album and gave it one haphazard listen. And then a dozen or so, serious, intense listens. Then I decided to stop a review before I ruined the same experience for everyone else. Just remember, Dose rocks.