Magneta Lane's debut album is a case study in making the most of a limited musical vocabulary. As they demonstrated on their The Constant Lover EP two years ago, the band's sense of dynamics livens up its basic power trio setup, ensuring that the flowing choruses and pensive bridges stand out from the choppy verses, as well as keeping the basic minor key chord progressions fresh with rhythmic variety.
If anything keeps Dancing With Daggers from equaling the EP, it's the lack of a genuine show-stopper like "The Constant Lover". "Wild Gardens" comes closest, rising out of a downtrodden verse on which vocalist Lexi Valentine's voice mingles with the fuzz guitar to a soaring chorus that manages to transform its melancholy vocal line into a sort of valediction through rhythm.
And although nothing here tops that track, there are still plenty of other great, swooning melodies. Valentine sings long, slow melodies over frenetic strumming and frenzied, start-stop drumming on "The Better Plan", highlighting the natural mournfulness that comes through in her thick alto, a set of pipes that would have taken her far in the New Wave era. "Artistic Condition" explodes from quiet, high-tempo verses into a shimmering chorus featuring a guitar part strangely reminiscent of the Manic Street Preachers' "No Surface All Feeling", while Nadia King's drum part on opener "Bridge to Terabithia" never quite slips into a straight rhythm, instead letting the guitar and bass carry the song's central rhythmic thrust.
The presence of Death From Above 1979's Jesse Keeler at the boards probably has something to do with the nastier fuzztones that coat the bass and guitar at various points in the album, but otherwise, the album is a natural beefing up of the sound of the EP, with occasional added organ or glockenspiel to accent the guitar parts. Considering that they're just now barely old enough to drink when they head south of the Canadian border to the U.S. (their age and the relative ease with which they procured a deal with Paper Bag produced some early, jealousy-fueled backlash from fellow musicians), they've developed an impressive sense of craft, and it seems they can only go up from here.
