The New Dress “Where Our Failures Are” (Red Leader)
I think we are getting to the point of redundancy in the ever tiring, yet still growing, folk/punk rock scene. The New Dress are a Brooklyn-based duo who occupy space in this genre. As much as this genre continues to slowly kill itself, The New Dress are not part of the problem. This duo can not be dismissed because they are jumping on some fleeting bandwagon. You can feel the band’s passion and sincerity as these songs bare their soul. That is why this review is so hard to write though. The band’s raw honesty simply can not cover up the flaws that plague Where Our Failures Are. Listen after listen I keep expecting this album to hit me but it fails to ever leave a mark. Where Our Failures Are stumbles over itself much like the male/female vocals constantly seem to do. Despite some promising material the duo struggles to find a common footing and the rawness of the record simply does not translate. The New Dress are endearing but too often these songs just fail to stick to your guts. The New Dress seem like really sincere people who carry their passion and politics on their sleeves. I applaud them for that and I hope they continue to fight the good fight. Frankly though, The New Dress do not seem quite ready for this full-length album.
Genre: Punk/Folk/Rock
RIYL: Billy Bragg, This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb, Defiance, Ohio
Setting Off Alarms
[audio http://www.ezarchive.com/original/soundaslanguage/01SettingOffAlarms.mp3]
Why do you think the folk/punk scene is tiring? Can you give me some examples?
way too many bands playing the style which leads to genres/scenes being watered down. just my opinion though.