Aw yes, the album review: A 300-500 word write-up explaining all the eccentricities pretentious wordsmiths love and hate about a band’s new album. While most reviews tend to hover the line between a positive and negative analysis, we’ve found that some seem to deviate from the pack choosing to spend their time putting an artist down for months of hard work.
We, on the other hand, would rather give the power back to the artist by letting them take a stab at reviewing (or simply explaining) their new music. And in order to make that process as easy (and fun) as possible, we’ve decided to give the artists one word and one word only to describe each song off their new release – thus creating the one word album review.
Featured on today’s OWAR (One Word Album Review; come on, keep up) is Dance Gavin Dance’s magnificently marvelous release Mothership. Charting new territory by releasing their third album in a row with the same singer combination, Mothership is an excellent example of the band’s growth and experimentation over the their lengthy ten-plus year career.
Now, before we turn this too much into our own review, we’re going to pass things over to Dance Gavin Dance co-founder/guitarist Will Swan as he carefully (and possibly randomly) chose thirteen specific words to describe each of his band’s groove-heavy tracks. Along with the one-word descriptions, the Afro Assassin also shared a little insight on how a few of the band’s somewhat silly song titles came to be.
To check out what he had to say, be sure look below. Afterwards, make sure to not only pick up a copy of the band’s new record but also grab tickets to see Dance Gavin Dance out on tour with The Contortionist, Hail The Sun, Good Tiger and The White Noise here.
“Chucky Vs. The Giant Tortoise”
Red-Head.
[Bonus Will Swan Song Title Explanation: “Chucky was a name I came up with. I had been watching the Chucky movies and I go on little horror movie marathons all the time – especially 80′s movies. I just happened to be watching Chucky the day I went into practice to write the song. We usually write the song in like one, maybe two practices. So it comes together quick as fuck and that’s just what I was watching that day and I wanted to name it Chucky and have him fighting something [but] I just couldn’t think of anything. The first thing I thought of was giant tortoise, so that’s pretty much how that came together. It’s a nonsensical name and it almost got changed but the day we turned in the record, I told everyone I hated the new name and I wanted to go back to the working title. So we did and I’m happy about that because it’s one of my favorite [track] names.]
“Young Robot”
Puberty.
“Frozen One”
Janet-Jackson.
[Bonus Will Swan Song Title Explanation: I still haven’t seen Frozen, the movie. I’m trying not to but I did go to Disney Land the other day and I saw the Frozen stage play, so I guess I kind of cheated and did see it. But, I was kind of not stoked when they named it ‘Frozen One’ – I think Tilian named it ‘cause he says ‘frozen one’ in the song. I was like, ‘Dude, people are just going to think Frozen cause that’s a huge craze. I don’t want people dressing up like Elsa and think they’re dressing up like DGD.]
“Flossie Dickey Bounce”
Cocaine.
[Bonus Will Swan Song Title Explanation: “This one I named. I think Jon added bounce to it though. I just wanted to call it Flossie Dickey after that old lady. I don’t know if you remember that YouTube video but it was an interview with a real old woman named Flossie Dickey on her birthday and she was like 110 and was just miserable. Everything they asked her like, ‘So, how do you feel?’ [she’d respond] ‘Meh, I’ve been better.’ It was the worst and it was just hilarious so I decided it would be cool to have a song named after her. Jon added bounce so we wouldn’t be sued.”]
“Deception”
Benedict-Arnold.
“Inspire The Liars”
Bald.
“Philosopher King”
Stove.
“Here Comes The Winner”
The-Voice (The TV Show).
“Exposed”
Solidarity.
“Betrayed By The Game”
Paper.
[Bonus Will Swan Song Title Explanation: “’Betrayed By The Game’ is another one I named. I just thought that song was sad so I wanted to make a hella thug-ass sad title and it stuck. I thought for sure they were going to veto that cause it’s like a single but they didn’t so I was really happy. I got a lot of my little joke titles through on this record.”]
“Petting Zoo Justice”
Llamas.
[Bonus Will Swan Song Title Explanation: “Well, the lyrics for this song are about animals fighting. Like, the whole song is just different animals being pitted against each other. It’s kind of a comedy song. Everybody I know who’s listened to the song while reading along to the lyrics crack up because it’s so goddamn ridiculous. So I think Jon named it ‘cause it’s just fitting there’d be some kind of petting zoo or zoo justice fight because it’s just the most ridiculous song. And it’s so heavy too – I mean, no one can understand what screamers are saying. So, if you don’t know what [Jon] is saying, you’re like ‘Oh man, that must be evil or something.’ No, it’s like [a] fucking three-toed sloth versus this guy, it’s silly as fuck.”]
“Chocolate Jackalope”
Peanut-Butter.
[Bonus Will Swan Song Title Explanation: “This one I half-way named after this place, The Jackalope, on that strip in Austin, Texas. They have a bomb burger that I always go eat and I like hanging out in that bar. So I took Jackalope and threw chocolate in front of it just ‘cause I’m half black so I like to put chocolate in front of things. Yeah, it’s another kind of silly name I made up.”]
“Man Of The Year”
Jerry-Garcia.
