Degeneration Street

The Dears exemplary development

The stable growth demonstrated by the Canadian band The Dears may soon become a subject of research for music managers and strategists. The musicians from the North American country reached an amazing shape before starting to work on their fifth record as they showed a great desire to create and an impressive musical training. This all became possible thank to the outfit’s creative leader and founder, Murray Lightburn who seems to be born destined to pen and perform music. His father was a priest who was crazy about good jazz. This is why The Dears indie-rock exposes inevitable moodiness from gospel and unexpectedness from jazz. After their breakthrough album No Cities Left (2004), the band gained a gigantic popularity in the UK where many would delightfully discover in their material traces of exquisite and melancholic Brit-pop. Indeed, the first albums by The Dears accustomed their fans to slightly depressive and always delicate sort of music. After grabbing leading positions back at home in Canada and far away from its borders, the musicians made an attempt to make something different, which turned into a variously reviewed CD called Missiles (2008). In order to avoid confusion in the rows of their supporters, The Dears came back to them in 2011 with an album named Degeneration Street having much in common with their early works.

Precise following their own patterns

The Dears began their preparation of Degeneration Street in an almost original lineup. The only new figure was the new drummer involved not long before that. Of course, this man could not have a great impact on the musical style of The Dears that was shaped up during a lot of years. The fourteen-track set is opened by the single Omega Dog which sounds like a hundred percent The Dears stuff, particularly due to Lightburn’s falsetto. The song is followed by another two amazing pieces, 5 Chords, and Blood, setting the tempo quite high up. However, this speed starts to fade, which makes the remaining songs even more like they what the band used to do. The darkened atmosphere that wanders from record to record is present here too. Only Easy Suffering breaks this rule having some rays of optimism and even carelessness. By the middle of the record, where the wonderful Yesteryear, and Stick W/Me Kid are located, one begins to know what he or she will hear on the next track: unhurried and quiet intro with a scream and emotional outburst in the end. This formula, when described in words, looks simple and even primitive, but nice lyrics and touching vocals provide each song with a particular sensation.

The Dears show the best form with Degeneration Street

Degeneration Street is not an absolutely flawless record with some of the weak sides easily discovered. We are talking here about the duration of the album that is very close to a hour mark. There are genres where sixty-minute records are a good sign and even a necessity, but this is not the case with The Dears. There can be found a couple of songs, especially the aforementioned Easy Suffering, that should go to make this album even better. Yet the band knows better. This minus is nothing against a great lot of pluses of Degeneration Street. The band’s return to their original sounding that brought them both commercial success and acknowledgment by critics and listeners is worth so much. The professional form of the musicians leaves no space for doubts. The ensemble’s ability to turn not the most sophisticated tune into a basis for a fine song is employed particularly efficiently here, on Degeneration Street. But the most pleasant fact is that this CD is the fifth effort by The Dears. This means that this is not a young band overdosed with enthusiasm and creative upsurge enough to make a phenomenal record, but not enough to continue like that. This not an old band either. For a good team with a good chemistry the fifth long player is rather a beginning than getting closer to the end. The Dears fans can have no fears for the future of their favorites.