Review Summary: I'm serious now dad, I listen to Thrice
Shouldn't this band be broken up by now? I mean come on, they're an emo band with one EP and one full length album under their belts, that's usually the time when bands of their kind tip their hat to the crowd and venture off into the woods never to be seen again. But not Dads, no Dads had a twinkle in their eye, and they decided they wanted to grow as a band, expand their influences, and do the almost unthinkable: make a third release.
Pretty Good has Dads trying to break out of their feel good jams emo shell a bit and reach new heights, with mixed results.
It's hard for a band that's known for their fun and lighthearted sound to develop. When you add maturity to the songwriting and lyrics you can often compromise these qualities. One is left to think "how far away can a band get from their sound while still retaining their core qualities?" From the Thrice worshipping opening track "My Crass Patch" alone, it would seem Dads have lost that original spark of fun but sad emo jams that fans flocked to in the first place. "My Crass Patch" opens with fast paced double bass drums and a furious tempo that gradually slows down until it reaches this eerie level, and it all sounds very strange coming from Dads. The dissonant and serious tone comes as quite the shock coming from a band who named one of their albums
Brush Your Teeth ;) and the song is a major bummer and is most certainly not what I look for in a Dads release. Fortunately the rest of the EP manages to be a bit more like their early releases, while still having a developed sound.
The second and third tracks "Can I Be Yr Deadbeat Boyfriend" and "Boat Rich" with their hammer on/hammer off licks mixed with open note arpeggios, and overall upbeat tone could easily fit in on Dad's full length
American Radass. Pretty Good culminates with the remarkable closer "No We're Not Actually," which unlike the opener, it's able to be more mature and complex while still retaining the band's fun tone. The shouting at the end of the track that escalates into a scream "I keep thinking back to all of us in that kitchen on those mornings" packs more of an emotional punch than most of Dads' peers could ever create in an entire album. Dads tried to do something new with
Pretty Good and I can appreciate that. The first song is not very good, the next two songs are great, and the closer is excellent. When I put these things together, there's only one thing I can say…..pretty good.
