The Dickies are a great band: trailblazing, deceptively sophisticated, vastly enjoyable, and wholly underrated. It's hard to imagine White Reaper not sharing this opinion. White Reaper Does It Again, the cheekily titled debut album by the young, Louisville-spawned foursome, traffics in much of the same elements that the Dickies pioneered in the late '70s: bouncy pop-punk underpinned with classic songcraft; hockey-rink-ready keyboards. In particular, White Reaper's singer/guitarist Tony Esposito sings almost exactly like the Dickies' Leonard Graves Phillips, all stuffy-nosed sneers and bubblegum-blowing vowels.
Luckily, the Dickies aren't the only influence on Does It Again—nor does the album's derivativeness in any way dampen its snotty, romantic charisma. On "Friday the 13th"—the only song on the album in a minor key—an ominous opening by keyboardist Ryan Hater sets the tone for a campy horror-meets-new-wave mash-up. And on "Candy", Esposito and company splice in some Sweet-style glam-rock swagger. "On Your Mind" even goes so far as to directly lift the melody from the original power-pop wellspring: The Who's "The Kids Are Alright".
It's all pulled off credibly, though, with plenty of perspiration and wild-eyed reverence poured into the pastiche. Bassist Sam Wilkerson and drummer Nick Wilkerson are brothers, and rhythm is clearly in their DNA; "Wolf Trap Hotel" simply rages, shearing off all subtlety in a flurry of adenoids and adrenaline. But even when things get as breakneck as they do on "B.T.K.", Esposito's hooks are piercing, precise, and endearing. And when, on the slower, more supple "Sheila", he lets himself cut loose, his vocals approach full-on croon.
Barring a couple of forgettable, filler-feeling tracks like "Don't You Think I Know?", the biggest drawback of Does It Again is the production. It doesn't sound bad, but the washed-out reverb and pushed-to-the-front keyboard creates a distance that the band sounds like they are constantly fighting to push through. Songs this punchy should land effortlessly. Still, Esposito's yearning and dissatisfaction come through clearly: "I've got it bad, you know/ Give me a double dose," he sings on "Pills", and it doesn't matter what he's singing about. It's our job to fill in that blank. White Reaper knows how to work that ambiguity, just as its navigates its unabashed influences to locate that perfect midpoint between "nerd" and "numbskull."
