Gold-Bears - Dalliance

The majority of this album is a high-octane blast of relentless drum beats and wailed vocals. “For You” and “Her Fears” nail the essence of post-punk classics; they’re so danceable they would go down a storm at just about any indie-disco you care to name. But Gold-Bears don’t just knock out your bog-standard 3 chord, 2 minute tracks. “Chest” begins with an exposed drum line which sprints into the verse, but it ends with glockenspiels and a singalong section. It’s a curious mix of the twee and the punk. Even “Punk Song No.15”, which from the title would seem to be an homage to the genre, mixes a subtle but effervescent ringing guitar line (the kind that would be more at home in a Beach Fossils track) into the texture, just to make you think a bit.

This nod to more recent surf-rock trends is continued in the album’s more introspective moments. “Hey Sophie” is the longest track on the album, at five whole minutes. It’s a delicate, melancholic web of jangling guitar riffs with a small dose of brass. It’s almost frighteningly sincere in its lyrical content: “Hey Sophie, the way you hold my hand, I’ll never love again… for better or worse, this is life”. Emotions? Where did they come from?! “Fathers and Daughters”, the album’s closer, pulls the same trick again. It seems to be a monologue of paternal regret, from a father who seems unable to tell his girl that she should maybe put the bottle down, and that her boyfriend might not be all that good for her… The everyday stuff that so often goes unsaid.

Dalliance is a brief half an hour expression of energy, without too much angst. It will never be considered a highly innovative venture, but the five-piece do manage to include some interesting twists on an old formula. Most important of all, they do everything on this album with a kind of frenetic joy. And for me, who ever is making it and wherever in the world they are doing it, that’s what noise-pop is all about.