Dance Gavin Dance is a Post-Hardcore and Math Rock band from Sacramento, CA, USA. They formed in 2005 and have released seven studio albums and one EP since then (also, their eight album will be released on 27th July 2018 and will be entitled Artificial Selection). Their latest album is Mothership, which was released on 7th October 2016. They were also featured on the compilation album Punk Goes Pop Vol. 7 for their cover of That's What I Like, originally performed by Bruno Mars.
Their current line-up consists on Jon Mess (unclean vocals), Matt Mingus (drums), Will Swan (lead guitar, backing vocals and rap vocals), Tim Feerick (bass guitar) and Tilian Pearson (clean vocals). The only members remaining from the original line-up in 2005 are Jon Mess (who was out of the band between 2008 and 2010, being replaced by Will Swan as the unclean vocalist during that time) and Will Swan (the only founding member who has never left the band) and they had a total of 5 vocalists (Clean vocalists, unclean vocalists and rap vocalists): Jon Mess, Will Swan, Tilian Pearson, Jonny Craig and Kurt Travis.
Dance Gavin Dance are known for mixing a lot of genres on a single track, with clean instrumentals suddenly becoming somehow violent. I'd guess their biggest influences are Circa Survive and At the Drive-In, two pioneers of the Emo and Post-Hardcore scene. This band's musical style has been described by the critics as Post-Hardocore, Math Rock, Experimental Rock, Progressive Rock, Screamo, Jazz Fusion, Emo, Pop Rock, etc...
The critics, specially Alternative Press, praise them, even saying they are one of the most promising bands today. They were considered one of the best bands/artists of the Vans Warped Tour 2017 by the fans of this concert tour, along with Fit For a King. Suicide Silence, Andy Black, 3OH!3 and Silverstein (between about 60 bands/artists, the only ones I know and like are George Watsky and The Adolescents).
Here's my opinion about Dance Gavin Dance: Awful. Their mix does not work out at all. They always start a song with a calm rhythm, like a rainbow coming out of the sky, and then it is interrupted by a violent but still poppish rhythm, with an unclean vocal coming in. I mean, it is a constant mess, they try too hard to be different and end up creating a chaos, a mix of good and bad that makes you cringe.I will try to exemplify this with a couple of songs: Betrayed By The Game has a reasonable instrumental, but the vocals make this song worse, going from clean to unclean and from unclean to clean, with louder drums and guitar beats when Mess is singing (at least the name fits); Spooks has the same problem, but it is even worse because of the rap verse by Swan, with awful, awful, AWFUL lyrics ("I'm a T.O.Y. F.O.R. you, on pleasure principle / We keep it on the down low cause public eyes are sensible / There ain't no outcome without illusion that I let you in the first place / Girls you know what we're doing, this is dirty sex / Back seats, over the tables, under the sheets / At the workplace, on the beach / In the hammock where I sleep / I know it's your birthday, but call me up at 3:30 / Damn, okay, where do you want to meet?"). It looks like they used a sentence generator for that rap verse. Also, the same old problem happens here: In the beginning, the guitar is playing calmly, with an acceptable instrumental, but then Mess starts singing and the whole song starts to drown in a massive chaos. Also, the way this song (and all the others) progresses is quite bad. It looks like they stopped playing that song without any warning and started to play another one, except... it is the same track (you can also see that at 2:48, on Inspire The Liars). But yeah, the worse problem here is the rap verse. Makes me giggle.
Also, the names of the songs are really stupid. Names like The Robot With Human Hair (parts 1, 2, 3 and 4), The Death of The Robot With Human Hair, Strawberry André, Surprise! I'm From Cuba, Everyone Else Has One Brain, Me And Zoloft Get Along Just Fine, Strawberry Swisher (parts 1, 2 and 3), Don't Tell Dave, Heat Seeking Ghost of Sex and Death of a Strawberry makes me think if they are really serious about this.
I was introduced to Dance Gavin Dance during my "emo" phase, when I loved bands like Anatomy of a Ghost (I only realized a couple months ago that Josh Gourley is the vocalist of both Anatomy of a Ghost and Portugal. The Man), Fit For Rivals, Fall Out Boy, Black Veil Brides, Slipknot, Sleeping With Sirens and... Dance Gavin Dance. It was 2015, I was 14 years old, and one day a friend of mine messaged me via Facebook with three YouTube links which directed me to three songs: Make a Move by Icon For Hire, True Friends by Bring Me The Horizon and Death of a Strawberry by Dance Gavin Dance. I didn't like Icon For Hire's song (and holy shit, I'm glad for that), but I liked the other two. I found Dance Gavin Dance very innovative and something that should be mainstream (I have no idea how that even crossed my mind) and Instant Gratification quickly became one of my favourite albums (but now it is one of the albums I hate, even though it is Dance Gavin Dance's "best" work so far). A couple months after being introduced to this band, I got sick of them and deleted every single song except We Own The Night, which is one of the two only Dance Gavin Dance tracks I'd give a score of at least 6/20, together with Young Robot. I think We Own The Night and Young Robot are the only Dance Gavin Dance music videos I'd consider to be good. Also, if the Post-Hardcore side wasn't always interrupting the Pop Punk side, I'd consider these two tracks good, with a score of about 12/20 ou 13/20.
Now, here's how I think the band could get better: First, they should only have Tilian Pearson as the vocalist and should abandon the unclean and rap vocals. This includes abandoning the Screamo scene and stopping once for all the occasional rap verses. Jon Mess is an awesome Screamo vocalist, but Screamo does not fit in whatever genre Dance Gavin Dance is trying to come up with. The songs would be much better if Mess wasn't singing, and with Mess not singing, they would be forced to abandon the Screamo scene and re-invent themselves in the Post-Hardcore scene; and they should keep Swan only as the guitarrist and backing vocalist. The rap verses that I occasionally listen on tracks like Spook and Eagles vs Crows are pretty bad. Will Swan is not good at rapping and Rap does not fit on Dance Gavin Dance's genre. Also, the lyrics of these rap veres are fucking awful, like I said above when I was talking about Spook. Also, they shouldn't try so many genres. There is some good Experimental Music out there, like I've Seen Footage by Death Grips, Virus by Björk, and Ruby Magic by Portugal. The Man. Dance Gavin Dance is not good at experimenting stuff, and that's totally okay! They can grab what they're reasonably good at (Art Pop, Pop Rock, Pop Punk, Post-Hardcore (but with a couple changes) and Math Rock) and make a good album with that. BUUUUUUT they seem happy with the music they do, so I can't really do shit about that. Despite that, I have this blog to express my opinions. I'm just doing my job, really.
So, what do you think? Do you agree with me? What else should I review? Comment below and I will reply!
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