The presumptions of our smash-and-dash listening culture can make it difficult to suggest a band's attention-worthy not for what you're hearing, but for what you might be hearing down the road. That struck me as the case with Dinowalrus' 2010 debut %, a classic fixer-upper, a flawed yet promising record that showed obvious chops, taste, and ambition but not enough in the way of artistic vision: It knelt before the influence of post-punk and no-wave provocateurs alike, but without a similarly pioneering impulse, it felt regressive, a defense mechanism for a band that might not have been sure about its own capability. Best Behavior is far more accessible and enjoyable than %, but presents a strange conundrum on how to assess whether this is a legitimate leap or realization of potential: Is the slate of identifiable influences this time simply preferable to the previous ones?
It's a curious thing, because they haven't changed too much in terms of actual musicianship, even with the significant turnover in personnel. Sole permanent member Peter Feigenbaum is a subtly inventive guitarist with real-deal technique and the drum patterns are stuttering and busy on a micro level but turn into mesmeric loops when you telescope outwards. These things were also true on something like "I Hate Numbers", the one time % verged on anthemic, and clearly the jumping-off point for Best Behavior. So, sometimes, fulfilling your promise requires a system that can encourage your talents, and within the first minute of "Phone Home From the Edge", you see a proper application of weapons already at their disposal. Feigenbaum unleashes a brief flurry of tapped guitar runs and a bungee-like use of a pitchshifter pedal meant as hooks rather than repellants, and soon Dinowalrus go widescreen toward a wondrous and tersely worded chorus that could pass for Deserter's Songs-era Mercury Rev. It's a natural progression from the playful and purposeful opener "The Gift Shop", where bubbling bongos, contrapuntal guitar riffs and falsetto "oooh-oohs" weave in and out of the mix and establish a constant momentum and fluidity. Within the album's first 10 minutes, Dinowalrus prove to have just as many disparate ideas as they did on %; they're just better at organizing them now.
Or they've simply discovered that writing actual songs can be more challenging and rewarding than relying on established methods of rock deconstruction. Nearly every track on Best Behavior has a chorus of some sort, and they're often swooping and gliding in a way that's compatible with Feigenbaum's crystalline, back-of-the-throat timbre that recalls Faris Badwan from the Horrors, a band who similarly ditched a highly stylized set of abrasive and cred-baiting influences for regally-paced, panoramic art rock. The claims of Madchester and Factory influence don't exactly scan-- while Best Behavior does maintain a consistently rhythm-based approach, it's more in the Stone Roses sense where the "dance" aspect presents itself in appendage to classic song structure, as with the slo-mo tropical percussion of "Riding Eazy", or the swirling synth arpeggios of "Radical Man" that are quickly overtaken by typically glistening guitars. The closest you get to a true floor-mover is "RICO", which in a number of ways is the closest link to %-- for one thing, the octave-toggling bass and a disco strut of the verse is pure New York City circa 2002, and that it unwittingly turns a sample from "Fly Like an Eagle" into a dance-punk number feels like a remnant of their confrontational side, as does "What Now", which features a barely recognizable Patrick Stickles (Feigenbaum was a touring guitarist for Titus Andronicus) and the one time where the hook sounds more like the revving of engines than the verse.
And yet, I hesitate to call it the proverbial "leap," because it still feels like the band is holding something back. While the cushy layer of reverb surrounding Feigenbaum's vocals give them textural concordance with the surrounding music, it can also render Best Behavior a little unknowable. Regarding "Phone Home From the Edge", Feigenbaum stated, "whether the song is about ET, U2, or the waterfront condo-ization of Williamsburg is still up in the air," and sometimes, you'd wish they'd take after U2's abilities to resonate rather than simply reverberate. But there's that thing about what you're not hearing again: Best Behavior is a strong record on its own merits, perhaps more so if you feel a sort of investment in Dinowalrus after hearing %, but it leaves something to the listener's imagination in order to make it truly exciting in addition to something sturdy to build upon.
