Baltimore’s Dosser are currently in the midst of a national tour alongside Pianos Become the Teeth and Caracara where their cool blend of pop-punk and winding, ’90s-noise-rock-inspired melodies feel right at home. With just a pair of EPs currently available on their Bandcamp page, their debut full length is slated for release early next year, with the first single from that collection of songs debuting today.
“Joy Thief” is a gripping first look at the LP, its choruses dense with guitars while the verses see vocalist Bret Lanahan wrestling with the anxiety and depression he’s struggled with since his youth, and which he’s slowly learned to understand over the years. “I used to have this weird daydream that if I could just open up my chest and let whatever was inside of me that was making me feel so terrible just spill out, maybe I would feel better,” he explains. “It wasn’t a bloody scene or anything like that, I guess it was just the only way my younger brain could picture getting rid of bad thoughts. As I got older and had a better understanding of what mental illness looked like, I was able to get help in the form of medication.
“The song goes back and forth with the feeling of being trapped in one of two corners that I think are pretty common in people trying to deal with or treat mental illness: Either you treat it with medication and get to a point where you feel almost nothing at all and totally empty, or just deal with it and have such intense feelings that you can hardly bare it. Finding a release is the hardest thing to do.”
Hear the track below, and grab tickets for their current tour here.
