Review Summary: DPC Go for Broke
Driftless Pony Club will always at least partially be related to WheezyWaiter, lead singer Craig Benzine's YouTube persona, and a big reason for the band's popularity. However, what I always feel is the more interesting story is not how they used the Internet to get famous, but how close they were to breaking up before they did. Other than Benzine, the band is composed of Matt Weber, Sam Grant, and Nate Bartley, having all met in college in Illinois. Their origin story is so shockingly average that its a wonder their music is even remotely unique. Like many college kids pursuing an art degree (Benzine was majoring in film), they decided to start a band because what the hell else are you supposed to do when you're 18? And like many (albeit less) college graduates, they decide to move to the nearest big city (Chicago) to see if they can make this band thing work. And then of course, for nearly a decade it doesn't. They all get separate jobs, commit to the menial grind of adulthood, and practice less and less as a band. Benzine becomes a waiter, and vents all of his anger, frustration, and filmmaking talent into a YouTube channel. The channel gets some attention right around the time the band realizes they have less and less time to be an actual band. So the informal decision to put everything into one last album is made.
Here's the thing: These guys are very clearly great musicians. Great musicians don't always make great music, usually because they pretend too hard to not care that they don't put any effort into what they're doing. In this case though, everything is done with such precision and care that by the time the final chord of "Maps of Low Fidelity" is slammed out, you can't help but feel that this album is a special one. Opener "Legends of Archery" is a great introduction to the evocative storytelling and hard-hitting guitars that this band specializes in. It might not make any sense, but there's no doubt in my mind that they know what their talking about. Album highlight "Thanks Earthquake" is another song that's based around a metaphor, but it never really seems to matter to me once the guitars drop two minutes in and it feels like I'm ready to brutally assault anyone in my way, although I doubt that was their intention.
That's really the main reason this albums matters. You have talented musicians trying their hardest to make a good, definitive record, one they can finish with no regrets, because they weren't only walking away from the album, but the band too. It might be the best album they've done, it might not. But it's definitely their most definitive; this was fun, but we're good now.
