Dillinger Four: Civil War
2008
Fat Wreck Chords
Format I Own it on: Vinyl & Compact Disc
Track Listing: 1. A Jingle for the Product 2. 'Contemplate This on the Tree of Woe.' 3. Parishiltonisametaphor 4. Gainesville 5. Ode to the North American Snake Oil Distributor 6. Minimum Wage is a Gateway Drug 7. The Classical Arrangement 8.Americaspremierefaithbasedinitiative 9. The Art of Whore 10. Fruity Pebbles 11. A Pyre Laid for Image and Frame 12. Like Eye Contact in an Elevator 13. Clown Cars on Cinder Blocks
The Friday Night Record Party Blog: A Gripping Tale of Man Against Nature:
Ugh...Minor catastrophe in my apartment Monday morning...It goes back to the 4th of July when the freakin' roof blew off of our apartment building in a spectacular holiday-weekend haboob...
We alerted the apartment office that the roof was destroyed and their response was a disinterested, "Oh well, we were planning on replacing all the roofs someday anyway..."
"Yea, but what if it rains again? Surely that would cause a much bigger problem later down the road..." We asked them...
"Ahhh....It'll wait..."
So sure enough Sunday night all hell breaks loose and the city floods...
Which carried over into my apartment, so I've been dealing with that all day...Luckily most of my beloved vinyl was spared due to a sombrero that was sitting on top of the crates and captured most of the water...
¡Buena suerte!
However the same can't be said for one of my CD racks which was completely flooded...So I've spent the morning blow-drying sopping wet Blue Oyster Cult CD booklets hoping the sagging roof doesn't cave in (the ceiling fan has already fallen)...To top it all off, we call the office again and warned them about this...Their response?
"Oh well, we were planning on replacing all the roofs someday anyway..."
Ahh, well...What can you do? Ding-donged if you do...Dog-danged if you don't...I'm just hoping the rain is done, because although the fully-paid day off of work was nice, the flooding kinda sucks...I did take precaution and I went out and bought more sombreros to prevent further damage...
Waitasec...I didn't invite you here to regale you with my endless tales of woe...I invited you here to check out Dillinger Four's "Civil War" (which was spared in the flood)...
I remember buying this as a new release, although I wasn't in a big hurry to check it out..."Situationist Comedy" was a pretty big disappointment and I kinda lumped Dillinger Four in the Avail post "Over the James" or Swingin' Utters post "Five Lessons Learned" category...A band that made a punk album so flawless that they were never able to regain their bearings...So I picked up "Civil War" but wasn't expecting a whole lot...
But when I put it on and heard "A Jingle for the Product"...Holy shit...My jaw dropped to the floor...And I was greeted with track after track of pure perfection...I still consider "Versus God" as their high point but I'm willing to admit that ranking might be solely based on nostalgia...
Despite what all the cranky, snobby punks out there would lead you to believe, the band's strength has always been their sense of melody...And the six years (!) they spent on the album has surely paid off...This is the band's best collection of catchy, fist-pumping punk rock anthems yet...Highpoints?
Woo!...There's an awful lot of them...I've always loved "Gainesville" which perfectly executes the whole "bittersweet triumph" thing that lesser bands have devoted their entire careers to:
"And if the rain begins to fall,
I won't feel it at all,
Let's live it like we fucking mean it!
And it feels like summer in October
And I hope this day is never over..."
Do you hear that? That's sheer happiness coming from D4...Taking a minute from grumbling about politics gives the band a bit more dimension and makes them even more endearing...I love this damn song...
On the other end of the spectrum we get what might be their darkest song, "Clown Cars on Cinder Blocks" which reads like a suicide note:
"I'd offer up a sacrifice,
If I thought it would do any good this time.
I recognize the harms I've caused,
But I cannot pay for these crimes,
I'm not sure that I expect to be here New Year's Day..."
Dang, are we sure Erik's alright? Has anybody checked in on him lately? The song is a straight-up classic, though...Guitar heavy, hooky and the vibraphone gives it just the right feeling of dread to go with the shallow celebrating and "cheap campaign"...One of my favorites for sure...
I still can't get over how much I love this album...It's everything that was great about D4 multiplied by a thousand...In a time where good pop-punk albums are nearly non-existent this was a gift from the damn heavens...I get the feeling there's no possible way they can ever top this one, but to be fair I've said that before about them and was proven wrong...Three cheers for being wrong!
Here's "The Art of Whore" by Dillinger Four...Hey, that rhymes...
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