Growing up in the suburbs is really fucking boring. Like, mind-crushingly dull. Suburban kids know the pain of spending the most fun and creative years of your life hunting for inspiration in the most mundane of settings. For many, it creates an innate sense of loathing that lingers until it snaps – and you just leave forever. For others, namely Canadian pop band Dizzy, it’s the driving force behind ‘Baby Teeth’, their lush debut album.
The group, comprised of brothers Charlie, Alex and Mackenzie Spencer and their friend Katie Munshaw, all grew up in and around the ‘burbs of Oshawa, a city that backs onto the mammoth Lake Ontario. Speaking to NME earlier this year, Alex said that this environment “does have its beauty and its little moments of innocence – it’s very quiet and secluded, and that helps nurture the sound in some way.”
On ‘Baby Teeth’, it’s blindingly obvious how much creativity the band draws from their sleepy hometown. ‘Bleachers’ and ‘Pretty Thing’ are intricate compositions that place as much value on hushed moments as on memorable, prickly guitar parts and swooning choruses. ‘Swim’, however, bucks the trend with imaginative lines that see the band plead for some escapism: “You are the athlete / I am the astronaut, for thousands of miles I float / Still, you carry me home”.
However, the overhanging influence of conformity from suburb culture leaks into ‘Baby Teeth’, where several songs – especially on the latter half – are as “cookie cutter” as the houses Alex told us about. Songs like ‘Backstroke’ and ‘Pirouette’ show flashes of experimental tendencies, but are bogged down by repetitive melodies that’ll briefly make you wonder why you even bothered moving out here in the first place.
