Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is much to found in a symbolic name, the artist’s first unveiling of the big bang for a new creation to be explored. A name can hold many secrets, a title, a thousand mysteries but they should always be one that as each layer of the art is removed, slowly and surely; what remains should illuminate, should provide answers to questions that stretch beyond the notion of that first sound, initial sentence or primary introduction to the Muse that has kept the artist enthralled.
It is in the Lovers Rock, the new album by Montreal band The Dears, that the sense of the Gothic paramour and the beautiful apprehension of the Homer and Virgil’s classical presence of the Siren come together to provide the listener and the fan with a bounty of music that grips the soul as much as it entertains the mind. The disguise of appearing in the realm of Pop but being from a darker, more thrilling concept than the genre could possibly handle, is a testament to the writing of the band, almost Poe-like in its overall quality, but one that highlights all taking part in the venture and not just the pairing of Natalie Yanchak and Murray Lightburn.
Lovers Rock is an album that is unafraid to see the scars left by others as they remove the heart but refuse to care for the listener’s well being afterwards; the wounds that burn deep, in the case of The Dears, are soon healed, given reason to take pride in having survived the cut, and it is in the same Poe-esque reality that they bring to the attention of the outside world that makes the album one of dark intrigue and forced light appeal.
Across songs such as I Know What You’re Thinking And Its Awful, Instant Nightmare, No Place On Earth, Play Dead and Too Many Wrongs, the buoyancy of the epic is not misplaced, the drama is heard, measured and found to be exhilarating, and the overall feel is found to be held in the palms of the siren, the Lovers Rock calling out to the sailors who pass by with their hearts open for adventure.
An album of integrity, The Dears’ Lovers Rock will be seen as a mainstay of the darker side of Pop, a satisfying and glorious antidote to the emptiness that often surrounds the genre when it has not been given a purpose but to ensnare the impressionable .
The Dears’ Lovers Rock is available now from Dangerbird Records.
Ian D. Hall