Review: Dikembe | Broad Shoulders

The emo and punk scene in Gainesville, Florida has been vibrant for so very long that this blog's executive editor lost a bass player to the lure of the student mecca some 12 years ago. Dude left BOSTON -- Piebald's Boston, The Wicked Farleys' Boston -- to go to Gainesville; this really happened. Anyway, based on the strength of the debut full-length from the southern city's latest export, Gainesville's gravitational pull on the perennial population of earnest indie and hardcore kids is likely to grow yet stronger as people inevitably turn on to the brilliant emo foursome Dikembe. The fiery quartet's new album Broad Shoulders, released Tuesday by Tiny Engines (a small label whose A&R is uneffwithable), is crammed with melodic, gritty anthems concerned with the regrets and resignations that accompany coming of age. Channeled through a textural, two-guitar attack and nailed down by a charged rhythm section that pounds time to the band's punk heart, the 10 songs on Broad Shoulders crackle with energy as intensely as they ache with honest sentiment.

The collection's comfort zone is the heads-down punk boogie of jams like "Apology Not Fucking Accepted" and the ode to Gainesville "We Could Become River Rats," but Dikembe's playing is so dextrous and songwriting so well-developed that Broad Shoulders is free of tired punk and emo tropes. The scritchy guitar tone and mournful repetition of album highlight "Not Today, Angel" recalls very early Portastatic, but the rhythm section breathes a glow onto the ballad's slow burn. Melodic guitar leads arc above gathering clouds of feedback while fronter Steven Gray murmurs his incantation, his wishing away of his corroded relationship with his dad; the chorus is buttressed by a curious, canned beat buried among the song's soft, blanket-like folds. "Not Today, Angel" is a small moment of stillness on a record that otherwise shakes with energy. The relentlessly propulsive groove of "I Watch A Lot Of Jackie Chan Movies" -- which feels like it could crescendo at any moment, but just ends up eating its own tail -- echoes slithering grinds similar to those turned out these days by Western, Mass.-based indie heroes Speedy Ortiz. Stream "Jackie Chan" and a few other selections from the album via the Soundcloud embed below.

Broad Shoulders is clearly excellent on its own merits, but it is especially gratifying for those of us still lamenting the demise of late, great Brooklyn indie punks Meneguar, who quietly called it quits in 2008 after releasing its third record, the fairly weird The In Hour (the debut I Was Born At Night and 2007's Strangers In Our House, however, are stone-cold classics). So to Meneguar fans we say, "have no fear, your ship has finally come in." Broad Shoulders was released Aug. 14 on limited edition 12" and digital download and is available for purchase right here. The vinyl comes in an edition of 500 pieces, 100 of which are clear "with blue smoke," 150 dark orange and 250 light brown. Dikembe's long player was preceded by the free, digital-only EP Chicago Bowls, which was released in 2011 and is still available for free download right here.

Dikembe: Bandcamp | Facebook | Soundcloud | YouTube

.

Today's Hotness: Piebald, Frightened Rabbit, The Get Quick

>> Two stories of note over at Pun Canoes recently. First, here is news that defunct Boston emo concern Piebald will reform for a single gig April 18 at The Middle East Rock Club in Cambridge, Mass. Piebald most recently called it quits in mid-2007 after releasing its seventh long-player Accidental Gentlemen. In August we took time out here to praise the band's excellent track "'Grace Kelly With Wings," the opening track on the band's 1999 sophomore set. In unrelated news, a 1999 documentary about the New York City hardcore punk scene, appropriately titled N.Y.H.C., is being reissued in a special two-DVD set March 25. The set focuses on acts including Murphy's Law, Cro-Mags, 108, Madball and Vision Of Disorder and includes bonus live footage of featured bands performing complete songs, as well as other bonus footage and deleted scenes. The second disc includes new interviews. You can read more information here and here.

>> So it turns out that, at least according to this post at Hearsay (which points to this post at Scottish music blog The Pop Cop), the forthcoming sophomore set from Glaswegian indie rock trio Frightened Rabbit is titled Midnight Organ Fighting. As we reported here before our year-end break, look for the set to be released in the U.S. in early March prior to the South By Southwest music confab.

>> Action is afoot in the The Get Quick camp. Go to the band's MySpace dojo and stream the scorcher "Change Of Scene," which may be (and certainly sounds like) a holdover from the quartet's former iteration as Philadelphia's MantaRay in the '90s. "Change Of Scene" is pilled up and scritchy attitude and a total thrill ride. While you are over there check out the track "The City Of Perpetual Mist" as well. You'll be glad you gave the band a couple minutes of your time. The band's 2007 set See You In The Crossfire was released to utter silence from the blogosphere (except for our coverage, of course). This is too bad, because there are a number of high points, although the record wasn't as consistent as The Get Quick's 2005 debut How The Story Goes. Here's one track from each record.

The Get Quick -- "The Blinds" -- See You In The Crossfire
The Get Quick -- "Blaue Reiter" -- How The Story Goes
[right click and save as]
[buy Get Quick records from Newbury Comics right here]

>> We are about midway through the eminently readable Motley Crue bio "The Dirt," which made this item at Buddyhead jump out at us. Apparently "The Dirt" is being dramatized for a film expected to be released in 2009. The most interesting thing about that is Christopher Walken is rumored to be committed to portray Ozzy Osbourne. Val Kilmer, who hasn't made a compelling movie since 1985's "Real Genius," may portray delightful Van Halen fronter David Lee Roth, which somehow doesn't seem too far off the mark to us. More info here and here.

Today's Hotness: Lilys, Piebald, Frightened Rabbit

>> Rejoice. We've had a one-day reprieve from our work project, which now starts tomorrow. Here's some odds and sods that have been kicking around for a while.

>> Since we're gaga over the Lilys, you can imagine how pleased we are that the car commercial their music is currently being used in has drawn so much attention (based on the number of Google searches that are hitting :: clicky clicky ::, that is). Coincidentally, we've just encountered some incredibly rare live video of the band via the new, pretty sharp video search thing Chime.TV. The clip atop this item is about 72 seconds of the Lilys doing "Ginger," the tune in the aforementioned car commercial, during the band's all-too-brief 2006 tour supporting the Manifesto release Everything Wrong Is Imaginary. And this is a link to 87 seconds worth of a scorching version of "Touch The Water," the Apples In Stereo tune Lilys have covered for years and which first appeared on the 2001 Selected release on File 13. Or maybe it first appeared on the Send In The Subs bootleg. We'll look into that. Anyway, yeah, the Lilys: they're awesome.

>> We remember Piebald breaking up like five or six years ago, don't we? Well, apparently the Boston emo superheroes are calling it quits again after wrapping their current tour, according to Pun Canoes. Don't care? Then obviously you've never heard the towering rockfest that is "Grace Kelly With Wings," the opening track to 1999's If It Weren't For Venetian Blinds, It Would Be Curtains For Us All. The song starts all (erstwhile label mates) Get Up Kids, and ends all Queen, and it's great. You can download a live version of the cut here, where some cat has posted Piebald's set from the 2001 MacRock fest. Dig it. We've posted the studio version below.

Piebald -- "Grace Kelly With Wings" -- If It Weren't For Venetian Blinds, It Would Be Curtains For Us All
[right click and save as]
[buy Piebald records from EMusic here]

>> You know that Frightened Rabbit single that we noted was right around the corner? AngryApe has some more details about it here, including the fact that the flipside to "Be Less Rude" will be the quasi-title track to the trio's first record, "The Greys." The "Be Less Rude" single streets Sept. 24, and Fat Cat issues a remastered version of the band's debut full-length Sings The Greys in October, if memory serves.