In March, the San Francisco Bay Area natives The Dodos released their latest album "Visiter," the band's second album released through Frenchkiss Records (Les Savy Fav, Thunderbirds are Now!, The Big Sleep, etc.). The album chronicles the strange ambiguity that encompasses the early-to-mid 20's relationships, exploring the excited--and yet--erratic, bizarre, and complicated nature of relationships, love, and friendship.
The band's singer/guitarist, Meric Long, emotes these tales with an impulsive and capricious demeanor, channeling a child-like inner psyche that remains wistful, but not completely hopeless. The strength in the composition of the album lies within Meric's ability to relinquish this upon the audience, whether he chooses to be sardonic, embittered, or woeful. Logan, the drummer, contributes to the effect, mostly accentuating the intensity and drive of the music, with an unorthodox style that lends to the band's range as well, whether it be its cathartic psych-folk bouts on songs like "Paint the Rust" to its more hum-drum, quieter offerings like "Park Song." Meric's precise fingerpicking also adds an immense flavor to the songs, whether it is from the almost frenzied or furious strumming on songs like "Red and Purple," or the delicate timely plucks on songs like "Undeclared." The range of their styles lends to the band's ability to create an expansive array of songs that never feel repetitive or hamfisted, yet still feel very familiar and catchy listen after listen.
The album's gem lies within the masterfully crafted epic "The Season," a tour-de-force that thoroughly encapsulates the varied stylings of The Dodos all within 6 minutes. The song sentimentalizes the fleeting aspects of troubled relationships: "Miles until this desert brings me back to your face/Those eyes you know I think of them still sometimes." Imbued with an alienating sense of despair, the narrator later croons, after the realization that it has all ended: "I woke up in a cave/no air no light no shade/when did things turn this way/I miss you on certain days."
The song then digresses into frantic fits of crazed yells and screams, while the drums slowly build back up, delivering the song to its final stanza--consisting of Meric fiercely strumming his guitar accompanied by abrupt shouts with Logan's intricate yet thunderously-pounding drums--eventually carrying out what may very well be the album's most climactic moment. More so than any other song on the album, this song perfectly captures the nature of The Dodos--an essence that constantly progresses, curiously meandering and venturing on with an undaunted, yet intimate, emotional complexity--something all too human, and definitely all too familiar.
