Listening to Dafoe was like discovering music all over again. If I were as passionate a blogger as the guys at Who The Bloody Hell or Rose Quartz, I’d probably find invigorating music like Dafoe all the time. Surprise, surprise, I’m not. So I was lucky enough to have this little gem fall into my inbox the other week. Now I get sent a never ending amount of music everyday and listening to it all is nearly impossible. It doesn’t help when most of it is shit.
The Barclays Premier League was in its second week and the band’s name had a resemblance to the last name of Tottenham striker Jermaine Defoe. Sometimes that’s all it takes to get my attention.
Now I can’t remember the last time I’ve listened to an EP recorded in someone’s bedroom. Dafoe are Queenslanders but let’s not hold that against them. Add rehearsing in a spare lecture theatre to the bedroom recording and this is as uplifting as it gets.
The easiest way to summarise Dafoe’s Self Titled EP is uncomplicated brilliance. The bass and guitar flirt with each other more than Brooke & Ridge on Bold and the Beautiful and the surging sludge of the choruses in “Hardgrave” and “Young Kevin” are mayhem created without over production. Even when you see their Myspace / Bandcamp pages, finally you see a band more concerned with the music than the HTML and it’s reflected in the overall quality of all their songs.
“Wittenberg” and “Knife Edge” represent a more upbeat punch to the other tracks but I think the vocals and lyrics tie the entire self titled EP together perfectly. Honestly it’s the frontman that sets Dafoe apart from a lot of other good music. On the first listen it is difficult to know what I felt but the vocal is captivating.
I selected “Young Kevin” to feature for download because it’s very rare to find a vocal which can execute whispers, shrieks, screams and lyrics like this all in the one song and be taken seriously. By the final chorus of “Young Kevin” even me, the man who only recently posted of my hatred for moshing, bands telling me what to do and going outside would allow all three to align when watching Dafoe.
Back in the day I went to a school and played cricket with a young Kevin. Kevin Sharp was his name, I'm sure it still is to this day. He was one of those fellas that could only be described as priceless. Had that Karl Pilkington quality where he'd come out with something hilarious and have no idea. Ahh miss that guy!
So cast your mind back to a time when you were young and you craved a band to obsess over, follow from coast to coast and stalk via cyberspace, Dafoe is the band for you.
Head over to the Dafoe Bandcamp page and buy the EP for $2. Stream it and you'll see it's well worth the outlay.
Mp3: Dafoe - Young Kevin
Myspace: Dafoe
Thursday, September 2, 2010
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