So Many Dymanos - The Loud Wars

So like a million bajillion years ago the song "Heat/Humidity" by these guys snuck onto my iPod somehow. Keep in mind, a million bajillion years ago, there was a lot less music piracy, and I was unfamiliar with torrenting and blogsearch.google.com, so the most likely way this thing crept into my collection was via download from their MySpace page. Remember those days? Me too. I was getting really into the Blood Brothers and Cursive and generally was on the prowl for crazy-sounding emo. So Many Dynamos filled that gap pretty well, at least as far as that one song went, and they won some bonus points having a palindrome for a name. I specifically remember listening to "Heat/Humidity" about a dozen times on one skiing trip. FAST FORWARD TO LAST NIGHT:So a few nights before last, a friend of mine invited me to go see Maps & Atlases. I was like "Whatever, no one good plays around here, but they sound pretty bad ass." Therefore, as per my new can-do attitude, I agreed to go simply based on nothing. Me and a few friends met up at my other friend's apartment before the show. The friend who invited me proceeded to show me a video of Maps & Atlases' "Everyplace Is A House" being played behind footage of Beeker from the Muppets freaking out (you know, the one where he's got steam coming out of his ears and shit?). Well that video pretty much summed up my evening. We did some stuff and then walked back to the venue through the rain. We got there, I had to pay for my friend, and there was no re-entry. Welcome to my hometown. Anyway we got there as this band called Fang Island were playing - and let me say something about them: they are loud as FUCK. After they were done rocking the fuck out, I was all like "Hey, who's gonna play next?" and my friend goes, "I dunno, some band called 'So Many Dynamos.'" And that's when shit got real. I was all jumping up and down and freaking out: "Oh man! They're fucking awesome!" and started getting generally amped. And then they played. And then Maps & Atlases played. And it was good.

But this post isn't about some dumb show I went to (probably the last dumb show I'll be to all summer). It's about So Many Dynamo's new album, "The Loud Wars." I bought a copy at the show because I was totally hood rich and messed up, and thank God I bought this particular CD because I had already torrented their previous two albums (a fact that I had forgotten in between some royal ass-pains involving getting my laptop fixed). So I ripped it into my computer and left it there and tried to listen to some other stuff, namely the most recent Maps & Atlases EP that I also purchased at the show. But I started leafing through the booklet for "The Loud Wars," and these dudes have footnotes to their lyrics. FUCKING FOOTNOTES*. As if they couldn't hammer the nerd thing home any harder - but it's whatever because they're so cute. Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that this record is hard NOT to listen to once you have it. From the first off-kilter bars of "Artifacts of Sound" through the dance party riffage of "Oh, the Devastation!" and on into the end of "The Formula," the thing sounds like if armies enjoyed drinking PBR and dancing to math rock rather than killing each other. Like, if there was an army of people wearing glasses and plaid button-up shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and then that army met up with a bunch of stoned Yale students; like, if we were at Bonaroo right now instead of wherever we are. ("We don't make friends/we build armies").

Part of the reason this album sounds so freakin good is definitely due to the production work of the one and only Chris Walla, guitarist with Death Cab 4 Cutie and indie-uber-producer, whose previous work with the Thermals (specifically on "Fuckin A," the best album ever [sometimes] and official home of my theme song, "How We Know") I admired very much. Walla applies his patented "taking a weird scrappy band and turning them into U2" formula to the Dynamos' sound without losing that sense that they could play your basement party tomorrow. There's also a few bells and noises that I assume he had something to do with (there's a footnote about it but I'm too lazy to look it up - I guess this proves once and for all who's nerdier: SMD). Overall, the "huge but intimate" sound is really what makes the record: there's not too much reverb, but when it's there it creates a warming blanket; there's not too much bass keyboard, but when it's there it's doin' work; there's not too much distortion on the snare, but God that little bit makes such a difference. You see what I mean? Walla took these weirdos, who were guilty on all counts of no-bass-player in the first degree and tinny sounding angular guitars and turned them into a big warming sun on sound - albeit a slightly drunk, too-skinny sun with hair in his face who listens to Nintendocore but doesn't tell anybody. This is a very fun album too, and that's its biggest strength: "seriousing up" the Dynamos didn't destroy their sense of scrappy danceability, and the band was able to retain its "not nerdy, just interesting" vibe. Making them biggest was a good move, Walla. Enjoy your footnote.


*try it. (rapidshare - password: www.mp3tera.org)