Be prepared for a desperate Hollywood type catching wind of John O'Regan's story and turning it into a heartwarming dram-com that you will avoid at all costs. The elevator pitch goes like this: Hospitalized with debilitating Crohn's disease and estranged from his struggling, blue-collar indie rock band, a young man spends his confinement "learning how to reinvent [his] body" and transmogrifies into self-styled pop sensation Diamond Rings. Cue the gender-bending, rainbow-colored makeover, the bubblegum glam-rock songs made almost entirely on GarageBand, and the YouTube videos whose amateur choreography bravely and embarrassingly emphasizes the man's awkward and angular physicality. The soundtrack would make it worthwhile, though: Confessional and relentlessly melodic, "All Yr Songs", "You Oughta Know", and nearly everything else on 2010's Special Affections functioned as guileless musical therapy, a genuinely inspiring record about transcending emotional and physical stagnation.
Two years later, Diamond Rings has far surpassed the still-active D'Urbervilles as well as O'Regan's previous Casio-pop duo Habitat, signed to a major label, and started performing live as a four-piece band. And for better or worse, Free Dimensional feels like a sequel, more professional, calculated, and occasionally satisfying, ultimately lacking the anything-goes magic that called for a sequel in the first place. On some level, O'Regan's aim on his second LP is similar to that of his fellow Canadians Japandroids. Like Post-Nothing, Special Affections was a surprise hit that generated a lot of its resonance from a total lack of pretension; this was music made out of personal necessity, with no idea if anyone was actually going to hear it. Having witnessed the effect of these records on live crowds, both try for something more universal that repeats the trick of the original while amplifying it. But whereas Celebration Rock successfully threw its arms around an ever-widening audience, Free Dimensional does something trickier, which is focus so much on the capital-s Self that O'Regan gets taken out of the picture completely. As you can tell from the titles-- "I'm Just Me", "Hand Over My Heart", "(I Know) What I'm Made Of", "Stand My Ground", self-empowerment, self-esteem and staying true to oneself are the name of the game, and the lyrics are presented with a lack of specificity that allows the listener to think of themselves every time O'Regan sings the word "me."
Maybe that's the goal, but it's also a mistake. While O'Regan's story wasn't essential to Special Affections, it did manage to give powerful context and emotional ballast to what otherwise could've been fairly fluffy songs. O'Regan's songwriting hasn't changed much and the machinistic approach here reveals the limitations that weren't apparent in a 10-song debut. For one thing, so many of his lyrics follow the same AAB/CCD pattern ("I don't know how to get where I'm going but I know I'm growing every day/ And if I fall I'll get back into it cause I know I'm doing it my own way," and so forth) that it ultimately makes Free Dimensional feel more like a word puzzle app than an artistic exercise, everything O'Regan says restricted to a small number of melodic contours or rhyme schemes. This is problematic since he is consciously drawing from the most basic elements of pop lyricism; after a while, the endless new hearts and fresh starts feel like the same old rut.
Still, Free Dimensional importing most of Special Affections' compositional tactics wholesale means that it's going to have some economic and catchy hooks no matter what. The sound isn't as novel as it was three years back, but Diamond Rings is forever distinguished by the brawny register of O'Regan's vocals. Trade in the white denim for blue, and he could join Divine Fits without missing a beat. His best songs function like "Since U Been Gone" in reverse, starting with the idea of mega-budget pop and filtering it through Strokes-esque, New Wave rock. The most guitar heavy-track here, "Runaway Love", recalls the surging highlights of Diamond Rings' past largely because it's a minor rewrite of "Something Else" and "Wait & See".
The video for subsequent one-off single "Show Me Your Stuff" gave the impression that given the proper monetary freedom, Diamond Rings could and would go full-on Dr. Luke, Max Martin or RedOne. While co-produced by Damian Taylor (Robyn, Björk, U.N.K.L.E.), Free Dimensional doesn't go far enough to become undeniable; it's an upgrade from the Tinkertoy sound of Special Affections, but they still sound like an incremental upgrade, Lego constructions rather than the gleaming skyscrapers they need to be. The big moments are knowing winks and post-production graft: "I'm Just Me" co-opts the surge of an EDM drop into its chorus, "Day & Night" is modeled after Gloria Estefan's "1-2-3", and while the rap section of "(I Know) What I'm Made Of" is likely intended to be along the lines of those wedged into "Hangin' Tough" or Bobby Brown's "Don't Be Cruel", you still have to hear O'Regan rap. You'd think the namedrops of bell hooks and "Buffalo Stance" would disarm any critical faculty, but when he ends it snarling, "don't you ever even think of tryin' to [BLEEP!] with me," it's more proof that frothy pop recreations from acts with indie backgrounds are often prone to wincing self-awareness.
Though Free Dimensional is proud to be out of step both sonically and personally, in a strange way it loops back into a new kind of currency alongside the pop-star self-actualization of Grimes, Robyn, or Carly Rae Jepsen that's found currency amongst those who would identify as "indie" listeners. As much as they draw from the style and sound of 80s teen-pop, they crucially embody the appeal of its accompanying "starmaking" accessories such as in-mall concerts and "record your own song!" karaoke booths: T**his could be you. It strikes a balance between the power of relatability and the transformative power of pop music-- the songs draw you in, the image stokes your imagination, and their down-to-earth personalities makes pop-star self-actualization far more realistic than it does in the form of Lady Gaga or Beyoncé, i.e., people you could really only "be" on Halloween. O'Regan understands that, but he's missing half the equation here. Free Dimensional is an homage to certain styles of pop; what made Special Affections such an unexpectedly powerful document was how it managed to be a tribute to pop itself, more specifically the literally life-altering capacity of it. That's a great story and one worth retelling, but while Free Dimensional shows O'Regan ready for his close-up, the lack of depth results in the album title's pun becoming Diamond Rings' first truly ironic statement.
