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Math-, Prog-, and Pop-. Death and the Penguin Are Full of Hyphenated Rock.

Death and the Penguin's debut album Anomie mixes different strains of instrument-oriented rock, particularly math and progressive, with an ear for hooks.

Anomie
Death and the Penguin
Lonely Voyage
27 July 2018

Death and the Penguin’s debut album Anomie mixes different strains of instrument-oriented rock, particularly math and progressive, with an ear for hooks. Occasionally the band pushes too far into the technical weeds, but for the most part, it succeeds in making a highly listenable, exciting record.

The album begins with a quiet opener. “Hospital Song” is essentially an introduction, with lush keyboard chords accompanying vocalist Toby Smith as he croons “I’ll never die in a hospital.” This pushes right into “The Calving Shuffle”, as drummer Phil Gadsden enters with a slightly off-kilter galloping beat. This song hits hard as bass and guitar buzz along harshly, with a second guitar chunking staccato, palm-muted hits that almost sound like horn section hits. Smith sings about “sheets of ice falling into the bay”, which, yes, that’s calving, so Death and the Penguin know their science lingo. Anyway, this song goes through at least four distinct sections in just under four minutes, including a smoother, more melodic counterpoint to the main staccato riff, a metal section with shouted background vocals, and a calmer bridge that’s the song’s catchiest bit. That is a lot to pack into one song and it’s almost too much.

Third track and first single “Kill Saatchi” has similar issues. The verses are a bit restrained, with clean but precise guitars that recall 2000s bands like Bloc Party or the quieter moments of Thursday. The refrain, though, is all odd time signatures and weird guitar chords as Smith howls “Kiiiiiilllll” and guitarist Chris Olsen and multi-instrumentalist Andy Acred shout “Saatchi!!” There’s also a quiet bridge that builds steadily back to the final refrain. That is the best part of the song, and kind of makes me wish the band had thrown out the rest and built it around that bridge.

Later on, “Abyssinia” also features a great bridge and a lackluster rest of the song. The band leans hard on the title, building a whole riff around pronouncing each syllable in “Ab-ys-sin-i-a” precisely. That is cool from a conceptual standpoint, but less interesting in practice. The slow, sort of soaring chorus never really takes flight, either. But then the bridge hits, with a fat bass and guitar tone, underpinning some fluttery synth notes and actual soaring vocals. This section works so well it makes the rest of the song seem lackluster.

The bulk of the album works much better than the herky-jerky examples thus far. Like “Abyssinia”, “Colour in Me” attempts to build a whole song around a rhythm pattern. But in this case, they really succeed. The song essentially starts with a drum solo as Gadsden starts on kick drum (with handclap doubling) and then brings in his snare as a counterpoint. This intro firmly establishes the rhythm, which is like a steady 3/4 march with a couple of short measures at the end of the pattern for an accent. Because the song takes the time to show us this pattern, the listener can hear how it underpins the whole track. It also helps that the drums seem to be mixed out in front here. This song also features an interesting contrast section where the rhythms are much more smoothed out.

“Driftwood” is the album’s requisite acoustic ballad. It turns out the Death and the Penguin can make folk music quite well. The gentle guitar part is engaging, and Smith sounds quite good when he just sings and isn’t bellowing. At just over two minutes there isn’t anything complex about the song, but keeping it simple is a good choice.

The album’s penultimate song, “Was It Kindness?”, also begins simple and quiet. A muted piano accompanies Smith’s singing, in a compelling, tension-filled opening. This first minute closely resembles the old Nine Inch Nails song “Something I Can Never Have”, but once the drums kick in at the one-minute mark, the band spins it into something else entirely. Gadsden again proves his worth as a drummer by adding nothing but a hi-hat and fills for a good 30 seconds, and once the full beat comes in he throws in interesting accents all over the place, especially as a guitar eventually replaces the piano with a bright tone and style that more closely resembles the playing of Phish’s Trey Anastasio. Creating a song that successfully links Nine Inch Nails and Phish is a quite an achievement, and it’s the album’s best track.

For the harder-hitting songs, “Leatherface” might be the record’s most interesting. Spinning out from screechy, horror movie guitar sounds and pounding toms, the song coalesces into an unsettling verse where Smith speak-sings before sweetly singing “Leatherface / Your body doesn’t fit the skin you’re in” over a catchy little clean guitar riff. Because the song is about body horror from the get-go, the song’s variety of odd guitar rhythms work extremely well. The spacey, lighter section in the song’s final third where Smith sings, “Do you wanna pull my stitches / The rest should be entirely obvious” is maybe the most unsettling bit of the whole song.

“Space 1998” and “Strange Times” also are big successes for the band. The former manages to work some of Gadsden’s offbeat rhythms into a more straightforward structure. It also features some very nice keyboard work from Acred, who also kills it with complex, interesting bass playing throughout the song. The latter is sort of like At the Drive-In meets Queen, with chorale vocals on the chorus and slicing guitars and tightly rolled drums throughout.

Even the songs that don’t work as a whole on Anomie feature interesting sections, and the ones that come together fully are really, really good. Death and the Penguin are bursting with ideas, but they haven’t quite figured out how to fit all of those ideas into coherent songs. They’re already a band that feels like they have a truly terrific album in them, but they aren’t there yet.

RATING 7 / 10
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