A dark peppering of swampy alt-rock brings out our most villainous side.
OVERVIEW
What is a dog to a shepherd; what is a dog to a sheep? // Formed from a rebellious spat opting to create a concert as opposed to writing up a boring thesis, Dana Foote began to form a band with her brother and a few of her close friends at Bennington College, a stones throw away from Albany, Vermont. What transpired was moody walks in the rain: visceral vocals and yearning guitars.
That was in 2017. Now in the fall-out of 2023’s Summer, sees Sir Chloe at their most extinguished, their most exciting, two records in. Of course, Foote and co’s lockdown diaries had different monologues to most. 2020 started with the illustrious Party Favors as it became the perfect outpour of emotions amongst a time confined to our own four walls. Slow and achy Michelle led the charge – I’m such a fool / Take off your coat / You know just how to be cruel / When you shake your hips that way. – Animal followed suit, a spunky effort with more a crunchier sound. Now, three years later, sees Sir Chloe take an all-rounded polishing to their workings-out with seedy debut I Am The Dog, which was released earlier this year.
SONG-BY-SONG
It’s not a mere moody walking in the rain this time. Rather, it’s a malicious trench-foot stomping in the puddles; a notorious villain arc in the making. The album feeds us the first appetite of Should I, a callous refrain of seizing the plot of your story. It’s followed up with a metallic taste in your mouth, Salivate, a beckoning hunger-strike matched with screeching guitar sirens and tetchy vocals – “Wait another week / Take it in your teeth / Just a little shame / All it’s gonna take / Salivating, salivating, salivating.”
Centre, meanwhile, is positively strung as a callback to her former days of Party Favors. So, it’s certainly an album where Dana is seizing control, mustering every might to muffle those voices in her head. Sir Chloe is a fierce femme frontier in the androgynous world of left alt-rock. Hooves is the catalyst of that, a song that very much mirrors Hayley William‘s sullen-red solo work or perhaps the oozing of Penelope Scott would be better suited. Either way, it’s a catchy teen angst anthem letting out balls of energy – and it’s a competent band getting even more competent with it. “I don’t wanna hold hands, I don’t want to hold hands / You’ve been chewing my hair over and over again.”
A seasoned mood of echoic colour, Obsession trailblazer Sir Chloe’s new modus operandi of future sounds. Sluggish percussion, airy vocals, atmospheric synth lines and buttery piano drops all fill the space of substance in an equally impressive songwriting phase at the backend of the album. Cake is the next surprise on this side, a rising tide of pangs of frustration, temptations and dreamy moments of contemplation. It can’t just be about cake.
Eyes on your neck. I should put you down like a sick dog. Look at yourself. Thinking you deserve what you don’t get. Craving. I don’t need a reason for cake.
Where Dana takes steed in fast and frenetic rock to get your point across. Some other moments are met with reflective poignancy. I Am The Dog is a romantic lull of drowning your sorrows as an analogy of a ferrel mutt lashes out at false idolisation, “I am the dog under your couch / Gnashing teeth and open mouth / Shouldn’t have clawed my own way out / Lovin’ you’s my only house.” Feel Again keeps the analogy train running on full tank as we’re met with a brash end of classic alternative roundhouse-rock fitting for a sad girl starter pack playlist.
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