Review: Dance Gavin Dance – Instant Gratification

There aren’t many albums out there these days that have true staying power. Music has become disposable like most everything else. There are so many good bands out there putting out good music so rapidly that there is little reason to stay loyal to any one album for an extended period of time, lest you might miss the next remarkable flash in the pan. Not to sell the music short, of course, but it’s become so easy to record good music and make it accessible, that so many artists are putting out such highly quality music all the time. It seems like every week a new album of the year contender is released. Team this up with society’s collective ADD, and you get music that gets tossed aside like a day old newspaper.

But not everything is like that, there are albums that truly are timeless, and manage to stay in rotation for years and years to come, becoming an instant classic in the mind of the listener. This is, of course, a highly individualized experience; what is a classic to one may be garbage to another, but such is the beauty of music. And one of those albums, for me anyway, is the last Dance Gavin Dance album, Acceptance Speech, the first album recorded with them new vocalist, Tillian Pearson, formerly of the post-hardcore band Tides of Man (See our Frequency of the Week on Tides of Man). He breathed new life into a band that was withering away into obscurity, and quickly running out of stamina. They would be the first to admit that they were reaching the end of their patience with regards to touring and making music. But Pearson made the band new again. The resulting album is nothing short of brilliant; objectively speaking, it was the best album Dance Gavin Dance has ever written.

And this album has been in constant rotation for me ever since it’s release. This album is two years old now, and I can say that no album that came out that year has seen such constant playtime from me (the next runner up being August Burns Red’s Rescue & Restore, for those keeping count.) There are albums that have become a seasonal thing, maybe for nostalgic purposes, or albums that I catch scrolling through my iTunes that I give another spin to remind myself how much I enjoyed it, but nothing is quite like Acceptance Speech. That album is the baseline; it’s my default piece of music these days, and if I decide to listen to something else, it’s after I’ve already considered Acceptance Speech.

So needless to say, I was thrilled by the announcement of Dance Gavin Dance’s follow up record, Instant Gratification. In most cases I would be cautiously optimistic; looking forward to some new material, but unsure that they would be able to capture the same magic as their previous release. But for some reason, this was not the case. Acceptance Speech just seemed so effortless, it was like that was the music the band was meant to play, and from there, songwriting became second nature. And I confirmed those suspicions upon release of the albums first single, “On The Run”, and every subsequent track after that only further proved that this album was going to be something special. I remember sharing a post when that single came out, rather boldly claiming that Instant Gratification would be 2015’s album of the year. It was perhaps a little brash to so confidently heap such high praise on an album that I had heard less than 10% of, all the way back in February, but I knew it was very much capable of such a thing.

And here we have it, Instant Gratification has now hit the shelves, and I still stand by that original claim. Instant Gratification is 2015’s album of the year. I only it’s only April, shut up. If you have any questions about this, listen to the opening track, “We Own The Night” (see below), it perfectly encompasses the Dance Gavin Dance sound. Chaotic, jazz-like drums, frantic guitar melodies, rough screams, laying the backdrop to Pearson’s hypnotic falsetto vocals. It’s almost as if every part it working autonomously, and yet, somehow it comes together into a cohesive, wonderfully composed piece of music. These guys are a rare talent, their song writing style is fascinating, it almost shouldn’t work, but here we are, with one of the most impressive albums to come out in a long time.

But now we have the big question: Is it better than Acceptance Speech? Well, I don’t know. And I don’t think it matters, they are both brilliant albums in their own right. They aren’t necessarily very different from one another, but at the same time, they don’t really warrant a comparison. They are more of an extension of one another. They both deserve a lot of respect for what they are as an album, and I can say with complete confidence that, much like Acceptance Speech, Instant Gratification will become a mainstay in my album rotation for many years to come. After dozens of other remarkable albums come and go, even after the next Dance Gavin Dance album. This album is indeed a classic of that same caliber, and will surely keep me occupied for some time.