What happened? Dios have erased their charming West Coast psychedelica, full of carefully furrowed details and clever Beach Boys tributes. It's as if conceding to Ronnie James Dio and adding a parenthetical to their name meant conceding to make more populist middle-of-the-road rock, because their second self-titled (but not redundantly titled) record turns the dial from Brian Wilson to Joe Walsh.
Opener "Feels Good Being Somebody" throws out several leaden one-liners ("I take drugs/ But sadly I can't afford 'em") over stilted muted chords, then adding a bright jangle to lyrics about singing "a little song called marijuana in the sun" and, finally, "see how they run." From there the songs go through several inventive instrumental shifts, though they all recall the broadest touchstones of late-1960s and early-70s rock. "Say Anything" turns a gentle guitar pluck and drum machine into nondescript navel-gazing "Dear Prudence" clone, and there's a bit of swing to the southern-fried guitar licks of "I Want it All", but the swaying campfire strum of "So Do I" is a sterling example of why artists should never build rhyme schemes around the word "high." (Chorus: "I get high/ So do I!") Were there some variation to the flat-footed rhythms, were the guitar parts and organ flourishes not so predictable, they might get away with it, but the lyrics are always the focal point.
Further into the record, the band invests in smaller details, and when it does the songs overcome the lyrical shortcomings. The lurching tempo changes and keyboard effects of "I Feel Fine all the Time" elevate its simple melody, and the joy of studio manipulation is more palpable here, perhaps because the structure's a little looser. "Goin' Home" shares that same informal feel, with a layer of radio static reinforcing adding a claustrophobic air to the words ("I'm over everybody/ I've got no patience left"), and the band dynamics feeling less rehearsed and stiff, tempos dropping and picking up while a few jagged guitar lines dart in and out.
It's difficult to hold the rest against them, because the approach hasn't changed, really-- feeding 60s rock through an earnest, austere indie filter. The lyrics from the previous self-titled album didn't merit a Nobel or anything, but they weren't this distracting. Rock isn't poetry, and there's always a balance between clever and phonetically pleasing lyrics; But when playing in a style this broad and predictable, you ought to say more than dios (malos) do in "Grrl:" "I'll love you to the end (2x)/ Psyche, I'm just kidding."
