Get Dead – Dancing With The Curse

Watching the evolution of San Francisco acoustic folk street-punks has been highly rewarding.  The band started their career as sloppy acoustic punks and more recently made the switch to a more polished plugged-in ensemble.  As quickly becomes clear, Get Dead has an undeniable appreciation for their journey that has earned them a career worth of respect in a short while.  Despite now living more in the vein of Against Me! and Swingin’ Utters, the band never forgets their roots or risks leaving fans behind.  For their fifth full length, Dancing With The Curse, Get Dead builds on a passionate culmination of styles in a politically astute, socially aware package. 

The band sets an unusual tone from the start, blending a pseudo hip-hop spoken word intro with vocalist Sam King’s signature throaty rasp.  As the title implies, “Disruption” is a maze of styles, leading listeners down a sonically diverging path that shifts strategically every thirty or so seconds.  One moment it’s hip-hop, the next Operation Ivy style upstrokes, and then a rattling street punk battlecry.  Get Dead runs the entire gauntlet within the first three minutes, but only offers enough of each flavour to wet the appetite and build anticipation of what’s to come.

The range arching over Dancing With a Curse is what makes the album so consistently engaging over its thirty-two minute run time.  Tracks like “Fire Sale” hop along at a rambunctious pace with mile-a-minute adrenal injections circa The Carry Ons, and the very aptly titled and in-your-face banger, “Confrontation,” echoes the sentiment in a frayed, rapid-fire whirlwind of political fury best associated with Anti-Flag.  Others like “Nickel Plated” and “Take It” carve out a playful mid-tempo space, like a rough and tumble brawler that takes a swing just to see how much dust gets kicked up.  Even their most unhinged moments maintain the oddly approachable and melodic core that ties the album together.  

But that sonic playfulness can be deceiving, as the lyrics in “Nickel Plated” reveal a self-perpetuating downward spiral in which King belts, “We got no reasons / We got no reasons to stay / There ain’t no reasons / No reasons to change / Build that wall as tall as you wanna.” That sense of being boxed in and constrained by social class and circumstance continues in “Stickup” to a metaphoric breaking point in the rebellious call to arms, “Tonight let’s take the castle / Burn it to the ground / Have a dancе up in the ashes.”  The band plays with searing white hot conviction, making such moments immensely satisfying for those in agreement with changing the status quo.

“Glitch” and “Pepperspray” serve as a welcome reminder as to the band’s origins, smartly infusing the fine acoustic knowhow from Get Dead’s past into the present.  “Glitch” channels a dual sense of optimism and defeat, leaning on dark imagery and narrative reflection with room for a loose Alkaline Trio comparison.  Meanwhile, “Pepperspray” passionately strums away for the majority of the runtime before drawing from labelmates Lagwagon’s and/or NOFX’s bag of tricks by exploding into a final, fully plugged in thirty second whirlwind.  The band makes these shifts seamlessly, showcasing their evolution as one of stratification, with each subsequent layer serving as a foundation from which to grow.

All in all, Dancing With The Curse has given us a new and exciting instalment in Get Dead’s expanding discography.  This time around the band seems to be gaining even more traction, with strong fan reception to the album’s initial singles and favourable comments from newcomers on music videos.  Given my growing time with Dancing With The Curse, these responses are well deserved.  There are no obvious flaws to speak of here, just room for appreciation and curiosity as to where the band goes from here.  Dancing With The Curse is without question Get Dead’s defining work to date.