Dr. Dog
Shame Shame
April 6
ANTI- Records

By Melissa Traynor

Despite flecks of sorrow (which actually end up sounding pretty upbeat in Dr. Dog songs), Shame, Shame is really moving in a positive way. Many of the songs’ lyrics suggest a kind of longing, or searching, or tired, kind of settling where the first person realizes that maybe the good days are over, but these heartfelt words are presented against a backdrop of amazingly uplifting stuff. How can you be sad for the whole length of a song when a piano and a tambourine are around to cheer you out of a funk?

Though the band seems content not to have gone out on any musically experimental limbs, this record is just standard good. It’s like they don’t need anything special and it really shows that the songwriting behind Shame, Shame is all there. Maybe Dr. Dog just made the album for themselves. For example, the track “Shame, Shame” provides a nice sampling of what this record is about. It doesn’t need any hype.

The title track builds really slow, helped by country guitar twang, melancholy vocals and subtle organ, with a spurt from piano emphasizing a note every here and there. The beat doesn’t exactly pick up, but the tambourine gives it a little more pep than it began with. It’s kind of a lazy love song, if you consider spending more than five minutes blaming your lover for your conforming and falling in love. It’s actually really soulful, which is odd to point out given that much of the record is, but with this track much more so. “Shame, Shame” has even got classy R&B back-up singers for the chorus. The song ends cleanly and without any kind of depressing tone because the track finishes on a positive note.

Closing out the album is “Where’d All the Time Go?,” which brings in a familiar kind of classic rock acoustic and electric guitar and beautiful harmonies. Emotional choruses eventually kind of fold in, but there’s a nice little break and return back to the into sound. Then this explosive, yet simple outstanding guitar solo breaks out for the end of the song. It almost asks to be likened to southern classic rock. Is it appropriate to mention Allman Brothers Band here? Even if just for one song, the similarities between some of the classic rock greats and Dr. Dog run high.

The single “Shadow People” also does a pretty nice job as a sound-byte, but it’s slightly different from Shame, Shame in that it sounds a little bit more modern than other tracks. Other than that, the record would be hard pressed to present a really popular hit song, because that’s not what it’s trying to do. Because, if you pull one out, you don’t get the full effect; and Shame, Shame is a great collection of songs that need to be heard together. It’s really impressive that without all of the modern flair, Dr. Dog puts out a record that is plainly superior to many of its peers.