Dance Gavin Dance - Variation

     Have any of you tr00 metal badasses out there taken my advice yet, swallowed your unnecessarily restrictive preconceptions about style and genre, and had a go at some Dance Gavin Dance? If you have, good on you, whether you dug them or not. And if you haven't, the band's new record is the perfect excuse to get off your duff and dance, Gavin.

     The reason for that is that, for my money, last month's Instant Gratification was DGD's strongest outing in a while, with more cool tunes that I've found myself really digging than their last couple of records combined. More importantly, as far as you might be concerned, I'm getting a vibe from this one that's just a teensy bit heavier than usual.

     Don't get me wrong, Dance Gavin Dance is still firmly post-hardcore, for good or ill, and they're not going to be exchanging hipster haircuts for blastbeats any time soon. But there's tasty wee morsels of heavy here and there and it's a nice amount of spice to songs like "Variation", with its heavy, little groove about two thirds of the way through, all wrapped up in textbook DGD catchy melodic post-hardcore. This one's just plain fun, so have at it.

Saturday: Dance Gavin Dance - Stroke God, Millionaire

     How was your long weekend? Was it as unproductive as mine was? Now that you've emerged from your ham-and-or-turkey-induced food coma, come join me for yet another lengthy game of catch-up.

     First, a Saturday song. On Friday, I had you check out the first track to be released from Between the Buried and Me's upcoming rock opera Coma Ecliptic. Your Saturday song isn't anywhere near the epic length of "Memory Palace", but it does continue the theme of new and upcoming deliciousness.

     This time it's the second track to be released from the upcoming Dance Gavin Dance record Instant Gratification. "Stroke God, Millionaire" demonstrates DGD's continued ability to craft tasty little packages of pop-flavoured post-hardcore with just the right amount of tech (or tech-sounding) flair. If the rest of this record were to turn out at catchy and snappy as this one, I'd be a happy camper. And the icing on the cake? This ain't no lyric video son, it's full on animated mayhem. Peep it up yo.

Dance Gavin Dance - On the Run

     Sometimes I know about a band's new record well in advance, because of pre-orders or studio diaries or whatever, and I anticipate accordingly. Other times, as the music blogger in me is almost ashamed to admit, I'm caught completely off guard when hearing the news of an imminent album release by a band I dig. This post stems from one of those latter, vaguely embarrassing times.

     OK, so I'm not actually embarrassed when I learn that a band was in the studio and I didn't even have the slightest inkling about it -- I might be kicking myself for not being as thorough as I could be, but 'embarrassed' is too strong a word. Whatever the feeling, I get over it pretty quick and move on to being pleasantly surprised, and then excited, by the idea of new music coming out of the blue at me.

     Thus it was that, upon learning of the impending release of the new Dance Gavin Dance record Instant Gratification in April, I stopped for a second and thought, "Wait; there's new DGD afoot? Say what?!" Sure, the metalheads among you who look down on bands like Dance Gavin Dance don't give a shit about this news, and Instant Gratification's lead single "On the Run" is likely to further cement your not giving a shit, but anyone out there who digs DGD or other bands in their poppy-screamo little corner of the post-hardcore world should enjoy it. If that's you, give it a listen and get yourself some instant gratification.

     See what I did there?