Apparently MOJO magazine called the music of Drag City "fever-dream pop" and that about nails it. Putting to bed the whole dream pop tag is a pretty good start to pinpointing what this kind of material is. The duo's newest record, the wonderfully-titled Good Songs for Bad People, is out today via Bella Union, and the release is a complex one, full of emotions and moods that are rarely touched by most modern indie-pop.
"Working for the Men" is a cousin to the first record from Black Box Recorder, while the elegantly-deranged "Devil Doll" veers into the territory mapped out by both Portishead and Broadcast, but with a good deal more bad intent in its grooves. Elsewhere, "Just You and Me" takes that sort of thing and adds some jazzy guitar under the sinister grooves, conjuring up something that sounds utterly unlike anything else you're likely going to hear in 2020. If single "Live Free and Die When It's Cool" is more spacious, hints of "Ghost Town" by The Specials bubbling in these laid-back hooks, "Hand on My Pocket" and "Standing Where You Left Me" work out some morbid kinks atop backing tracks full of oddly beautiful textures and gently ominous keyboard figures.
Drab City are going to get compared to the bands I've mentioned above, and maybe early Delgados too, but the music here is remarkably distinctive and well-defined. For all the disheveled charm in these compositions, the tunes are wonderfully concise and succinct, with the mood-building ambitions of this duo never getting in the way of their ability to actually deliver one.
Good Songs for Bad People is out today via Bella Union.
More details on Drab City via the band's official Facebook page, or the official website.
[Photo: Bella Union]