"The end of the album is nigh, maaan." Grizzled rockwriters and idealistic techno-savants have been waving that apocalyptic placard for years now (sheesh, millennia!). Here's More Dogs, latest tombnail in tow. Seven tracks, 28 minutes: An EP, right? Warm bowl of miso soup, sashimi tray still TK? But these ramshackle Baltimore-based atmosphere-vendors are calling Never Let Them Catch You Crying a full-length, and for once, I'm not gonna argue.
What More Dogs' second ahem ell-pee (first for Monitor) lacks in length, it makes up for with big-top instrumentation, Nosferatu organs, rhythmic fakeouts, and mood enough to send noted psychiatry expert Tom Cruise to his meds. Never Let Them is primarily instrumental, aside from the Zombies-like harmony that essentially bookends the album: "When I think of you I think of sunshine, sunshine." After those words, the title track fades into the sound of a crackling bonfire or approaching stampede. Both lyrics and, indeed, conventional melodies soon recede behind gloomy/anarchic scene-setting and a tumultuous story arc left largely to the imagination.
So, imagine: Second track "Duty. Duty? Duty." is a stranger walking in an unknown metropolis, past the waterfront, along rat-infested streets bespattered with pissy puddles. Vibraphones, acoustic guitar, bass and dramatic organ portray a man alone amid urban hurly-burly. On "Teenage Bunker", percussion conquers all, clanging and clopping like a gruesome "Sleigh Ride" atop a suspenseful, spread-out bass line that soon grows violent. Rockists' friend Mr. Electric Guitar finally grabs a starring role on "White People", which during its quiet midsection evokes Radiohead's "Exit Music (for a Film)".
Watch out, "Overeater Under Water" follows with the post-punk card (disco hi-hat!), but the hee-haw bass line and modal guitar sketching still sound equally akin to a Russian folk dance. Disorientation gives way to vivid standout "March to the Scaffold", where further horrorshow organ stabs, lunatic percussion and vibraphones conjure up a public spectacle. An execution? Bass murmurs like a milling throng. Then "This Is the One" closes the disc in the red, mortally convulsing with feedback and cascading guitar nose. The album is dead; long live... shit. More Dogs would never be so obvious.
