Album Review – Dance Gavin Dance, Mothership

Dance Gavin Dance have now been with us for just over a decade, they are an experimental post hardcore band from California that incorporate numerous styles into their constantly evolving sounds. They were born out of the ashes of numerous bands including Farewell Unknown, Ghost Runner on Third and Atherton which may go someway to explaining the diverse influences on display in their hybrid of post hardcore stylings. Mothership is their seventh album to date and it serves as the follow up to their 2015 album, Instant Gratification.

 

Mothership opens with White 21, this track features a technical guitar riff and staccato drum riff overlaid with a mix growled and melodic pop punk vocals, if I’m honest I found  that all thirteen tracks stuck to this blueprint. Dance Gavin Dance feature elements of post hardcore, math rock and screamo, to name just a few of the influences on this album, but from my perspective that’s not an encouraging combination. I found that Mothership rapidly became a long protracted technical exercise, punctuated by the dual vocal styles, that I found somewhat tiresome before I’d got halfway through the album.

 

Mothership is a very polished and flawlessly produced album, but for me I found it to be formulaic and repetitive, however given their last album was their most successful to date, and is suspect this one will surpass it, maybe it’s just that this is an album that isn’t for me. If you’re a fan of this kind of technical math rock infused post hardcore then I’d recommend you get this album, however as far I’m concerned the Mothership can leave without me.

 

Mothership was released via Rise Records and can be ordered via iTunes and physical formats can be purchased here