Dope Body - Nupping

In honor of Dope Body's new album Natural History being released tomorrow, I thought I'd re-post this quickie review I wrote last year of their first album, Nupping.

I generally describe Dope Body to my friends as a three-way collision between Rage Against the Machine, Battles, and dub.  That really does this band a disservice, as they sound like much, much more.  Baltimore tends to yield odd genre-combo bands that take a trash compactor to seemingly random modes of expression, then paint the whole thing day-glo.  Dan Deacon, Celebration, and Beach House are the most obvious examples, though Beach House has definitely toned the fluorescence down.  The main point, though, is that Baltimore's exports tend to not RAWK.  Sure, there are plenty of examples that do just that and do it very well (Oxes, Double Dagger, Thank You, Vincent Black Shadow), but they have not managed to light up the blogs in the same way.  Enter Dope Body.

Every song on this album screams "WE WANT TO EAT OTHER BANDS", and for good reason.  Dope Body run through different ideas and styles of music with an enthusiasm and attention-deficit greater than even the most highly-caffeinated twelve-year-old.  There are remnants of prog, metal, rap-rock, grunge, ambience, and even a few shoe-gazes, plus a few things I haven't heard anywhere else.  And it all works.  The video for album-opening single "Enemy Outta Me" was released a full year before the album, and those who saw the video too early slowly drowned in a sea of salivation waiting for its release.  We've been well-rewarded for our wait.  Bands with this much energy and a slash-and-burn aesthetic aren't supposed to write great songs, so why is the jumble of mumbles, hisses, and screeches that makes up most of this album HUMMABLE???  By the time the first track is done (all three minutes of it), we've gone through several distinct sections of fuzzy plug-n-play meandering, blitzkreig stop-start noise-rock, delay pedal looping, stuttering white skank, and post-industrial meltdown.  All done in a highly engaging, visceral manner.  The rest of the songs don't really let up, making for a full-on sprint of an album that really satisfies.

I need a few days to digest the new one, but judging from my initial impressions, I'll be posting about that soon enough--and if that review doesn't seethe and foam as much as this one did, it's only because Nupping is one tough act to follow.