After years apart, with members concentrating on other bands (Bad Religion, Down By Law, All), Dag Nasty announced their reformation last year. Rather than just reuniting to do a tour with half the original members, like so many other older punk bands, Dag Nasty did it right. This is the full lineup from their seminal “Can I Say” album. They got back together, and wrote a full album of new material, promising it would sound like their days from “Can I Say” and “Wig Out A Denko’s”. They recorded this at Inner Ear with Minor Threat bassist Steve Hansgen, and it sounds really fitting to Dag Nasty’s sound, and true to their records in the late 80’s.
The songs themselves fall somewhere in between the songs on “Can I Say”, and the more melodic, straight forward sound of the bands Brian and Dave have been in since Dag Nasty originally broke up. The more I listen to this though, the more it sounds like a continuation of their best material. It also grows on me even more with each listen. This has energy and enthusiasm, but also a ton of melody, and even a few slower songs. Some would call Dag Nasty one of the first bands to originate the idea of “emotional hardcore”, which spawned the emo thing that was huge starting a couple years ago (and Spin just seems to have picked up on in really recently). Regardless of that, they were
an important band, and perhaps risked doing damage to their memory with a half-assed reunion. But “Minority of One” is quite the opposite, it’s a strong record in it’s own right, and easily stands up to tall the hype
surrounding it.
It starts off really strong with “Ghosts”, which is one of the most straight forward and poppy songs on the record. The next two songs, the title track and “Bottle This”, are two of the strongest songs on the
record, both showing off the incredible range of Dag Nasty’s sound. Perhaps my two favorites are one after another right after the middle of the record. “Throwing Darts” and “White Flag” bring to mind “Can I Say” more than anything else on the record. But they’re also the most powerful songs here. Dave Smalley’s vocals are as strong as ever, and Brian Baker’s guitar work is unmistakable at this point. Hopefully this will satisfy old time Dag Nasty fans, as well as turning on a whole new
crowd to one of the best hardcore or punk rock bands of the last twenty years. “Minority of One” is as good, or better than anyone could have hoped.
www.dagnasty.com
www.revelationrecords.com
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Review provided by > Stuart Anderson, Editor stuart@thenewscheme.com |
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