Review Summary: When bands you grew up with become grown-ups
Dangers are a band that hold a special place in my heart, all because of their 2006 album Angers. When I first listened to
Angers, I had just graduated high school. High school is a weird time for a lot of people - by the time I snatched up my diploma, I had been through four consistently weird years, with all the ups-and-downs and performance art that typify the process of a young person going through the motions of a carousel of developmental phases. I was excited for the future - college, partying, girls, a steady job - yet at that time I also found myself growing increasingly jaded about the present. High school had introduced me to many types of people I hoped not to encounter again, and it was while in high school (particularly during my junior and senior years) that the dual narratives we encounter in life & society began to suggest themselves to me. Behind the covershoots and centerfolds of
Vogue and
Elle, of
Esquire and
Men’s Fitness, lay a generation of body-dysmorphic teenagers with neuroses rivaling those of Larry David or Woody Allen. Behind catchy campaign slogans and altruistic policies, secret handshakes and private whispers - beyond Porsches and Bentleys, penthouses and skyscrapers, lay helpless and hopeless rows of impoverished single mothers and the drug-addled homeless. On a smaller scale, my high school was full of the stereotypical grinning jocks and Barbie dolls who poorly concealed ugly interiors of elitism, racism, sexism, and homophobia.
Angers was an album that explicitly detailed and derided many of the things that a cynical 17-year old might feel miffed about. Dangers covered it all in the span of about 20 minutes through consistently tight, polished punk rock instrumentation, ugly screams and hollers, and shocking vulgarity - and all of it left me feeling both toppled over and validated.
Angers was the first contemporary, straightforward hardcore album I’d ever heard; the violence of the music stunned and ensnared me, and the snappy, venomous lyrics impressed and often shocked me - how had anyone come up with stuff so nasty? Feel free to refer to the liner notes or even the track listing of
Angers if you’d like a refresher - take these lyrics, from “A Missed Chance for a Meaningful Abortion”: “Your mommy was on the pill but she just forgot one/Spread your legs open so I can ram the hanger up into your crotch/and kill your kids before it's too late.” Prior to listening to
Angers, I didn’t know people could write lines so virulent and get away with them. Finally, I felt that I was listening to music which reflected and criticized the real world, which reflected my darker thoughts and the episodic existential crises that would plague me as I moved into adulthood.
Emotionally resonant experiences with music - those albums that hit you in just the right spots, that make you feel alive, that leave you baffled with the profound talent behind their production - aren’t experiences that I consistently have. I enjoy a lot of different music, but as with any art, there’s not always a lot of it that I can truly, deeply call myself a fan of. Obviously,
Angers was one of those experiences for me. I’m pleased to report that
The Bend in the Break is also an album I’d call myself a fan of. I’d lost some hope for Dangers after
Messy, Isn’t It?, an LP that had a couple of stand-outs but which I found to be largely sloppy and overwrought, and which never much motivated me to return.
The Bend in the Break is a complete return-to-form for Dangers, which finds them balancing hard work and play to deliver an album that is equal parts fun and discomforting, an album that should rightfully propel them to the top of every hardcore kid’s radar.
The Bend In The Break finds Dangers perfecting their concisely nasty approach while also diversifying their sound to incorporate more progressive and experimental sections. On album opener “Human Noose”, Alfred Brown IV introduces the album half-crooning over a sole guitar accompaniment of sustained, lightly distorted chords - the kind of “calm-before-the-storm” approach that might remind you of the opener from Lewd Acts’s
Black Eye Blues, before the song blossoms out into a mid-tempo declaration of purpose, accompanied by rumbling, gradually intensifying drums: “*** yeah, I’m still the kid who’s got his head stuck in the clouds.” The track puts one in mind of a Jack Sparrow or Prophet in Plain Clothes-type, drunkenly staggering down a moonlit backalley, woozily weaving in and out of consciousness and trying to keep a fix on the ground, sick of the world’s *** and plotting their vengeance.
Subsequent tracks include “Those Sad Plebes Down Below”, which includes a staccato blast of stops and starts and a classically unsettling vocal trade-off between frontman Alfred Brown and lead guitarist Justin Smith. Tracks such as “Kiss With Spit” and “It’s The Devil I Love” offer similarly satisfying indignant metal punk, again with standout guitar work from Smith, which often sounds like it is working double-time to contain the fallout of an explosion emanating from an often blistering rhythm section. “Darkest Arts” is an early knockout, with twangy, Southern rock-styled guitars oscillating through an ascent and descent of scales that wouldn’t sound out of place in an Every Time I Die single. “Rock and roll ******/Half-breed mulatto faux pas”, sings Brown - clearly, many of the race issues that Dangers lampooned in tracks like “Half-Brother, All Cop” and “Opposable” are still at the forefront of the band’s ideology, and it is for the benefit of both band and listener that Dangers haven’t abandoned their core political issues but have adopted an occasionally more understated, and ultimately more impactful, way of relating them.
One of the best examples of the progression of Dangers as a band, and also one of the most memorable tracks on
The Bend in the Break, is “Loose Cigarettes”, a song which examines contemporary race relations in the United States (if the title’s reference to the death of Eric Garner didn’t give it away) and which tries to remind us that all life is precious. It’s slow, it's heavy, and it is an unusually patient song for Dangers - a little bit like a ballad, even a tad reminiscent of “My Wonder Years Never Got Canceled”, which served similarly as a contemplative mid-album marker on
Angers. In its anguish we are shown a raw, emotional side to the band which seems uncharted in comparison to the rest of their catalogue. It is this patience and grace which serve to highlight
The Bend In The Break in stark contrast against earlier Dangers releases - this is the band reflecting on adulthood, about what it means for all of us, about how all of us need to work harder to get along - and doing it all with elegance. The album, as a whole, is effective because it is so authentic; nothing forced, nothing rushed, all real.
Dangers have reached a balance in their songwriting and their sound wherein they hit harder by saying and doing a little less. This is not to understate the aural assault that is often present on
The Bend In The Break, but it is an album that finds the band more effectively and accessibly exploring different styles than in previous efforts. Whereas
Messy, Isn’t It?, the band’s sophomore LP, seemed an often-forgettable, unfocused jumble in need of a better editor,
The Bend In The Break is direct, easily digestible and ceaselessly entertaining. And it rewards repeat listens - Dangers seem to be treating the idea of the “album” as a form that deserves more reverence, as
The Bend In The Break has some experimental segues and cuts that tread post-rock and even pop-punk territory - even these minimally important intermissions seem more strategically placed and sensibly timed than the filler interruptions on
Messy, Isn’t It?;
The Bend in the Break uses these mechanics to create a dark and foreboding atmosphere, elevating the album artistically and once again separating it from its predecessors.
The Bend in the Break tells a cohesive sort of story that packs more emotional resonance than you might expect, that reveals its deeper meanings only after repeat listens and dissections. It’s an album that delivers all of the wrathful ire that Dangers are known for, yet one that also seems to leave darker bruises
The bottom line is this: if you’re a fan of Dangers in any capacity, you will be a fan of
The Bend in the Break. If this is your first time with Dangers, or an early experience with hardcore punk (like Angers was for me at that crucial time just before my disembarkation from late childhood into “official” early adulthood) then I suspect you're in for a surprise, which may require a little patience but will amply reward it.
The Bend in the Break is an example of a band at the height of their abilities - it’s an album chock-full of audaciousness, ugliness, bitterness, and speed, all of which is well-produced and technically impressive; it is also an album that shows a group of musicians well-into their lives and careers and ready to shed most of the purposeful immaturity and shock/awe tactics inherent to young punks - Dangers are a group of musicians whom have grown and re-emerged as adults, with the patience and wisdom necessary for relaying messages of greater importance. I wait with bated breath to see what they'll tell us next time.
