Dr. Dog
Dr. Dog
WE BUY GOLD
If you could squeeze tight the American pop harmonics of The Byrds with the soulful shambling jam of Buffalo Springfield—to say nothing of each original beardo band’s dedication to inspired cinematic psychedelia and folksiness without being cloyingly earnest—you’d come up with the funky, clunky Dr. Dog. The toast of indie Philadelphia without ever sounding too indie or altogether too Philadelphian, grade school friends turned band founders Scott McMicken and Toby Leaman made weird, contagious, unobvious, worldly folk-pop across 11 albums and countless tours up until 2021, when they and the rest of the Dog didn’t wish to flog and slog each other stupid. So they quit touring, but promised they weren’t breaking up.
The band’s new self-titled record and first since 2018’s Critical Equation maintains their promise as it sounds unified and sophisticated—like a clever continuation of the dramatic psych-pop of their previous albums—while managing something else they never really held as important: clarity. With its 11 songs all credited to the five guys of Dr. Dog (rather than just their two co-founders), and its production all coming down solely to lead guitarist McMicken at his home studio after he worked with Big Thief, Dr. Dog sounds like this band’s potential greatest-hits package, their shiny and remastered best for the goal of optimum woodsy psychedelic crispness.
That’s mostly great, as it opens up songs such as “Fat Dog” to something richly expansive and rainbow-bold. Sometimes things are a little too smooth in sound and lyrical vision, but that’s what happens when you choose family over staying freaky, and one producer’s sightlines in opposition to 10 eyes looking everywhere at once. But as their concerns and musical vibes are a might more adult than they were four years ago, early album tracks such as “Authority” and “Talk Is Cheap” are curt and cutting pop that make it sound as if Leaman and McMicken never left behind the creative impulses of grade school. Plus, drummer Eric Slick—a goofball, art-pop solo artist in his own right—still pounds the skins with more nerve and nuance than most stickmen in the business. Cheers all around.
