Album Reviews

Take Back The Night
The Dwarves Take Back The Night
6.5
 on
Monday, February 12, 2018 - 20:13
submitted by
Thomas

In a time where we are all becoming so politically correct that even ‘Friends’ has been deemed offensive, you could make a case for saying that we need The Dwarves more than ever to smash the status quo. But might I suggest one of their older albums? ‘Take Back The Night,’ the band’s first new album in four years, is not their finest hour.

The album starts off decent enough with the highly melodic, garage-y and unapologetic ‘Forget Me Not’. In other words, vintage Dwarves. They then go all out on ‘City By The Bay’ and ‘Devil’s Level’ and the downright abrasive ‘Everything And Moore’. But when we get to the title track and ‘It’s You I Don’t Believe’, they are … well, not quite so memorable. Sure, they are short, fast and as in your face as a creampie compilation. Other than that though, there’s just not a whole lot to go round.

From there on it’s a bit hit and miss. There’s ‘Here’s Looking At You’, a great example of Blag Dahlia doing what Blag Dahlia does best. Which is write sweet, bubblegum-y tunes about pervy shit, in this case a peeping tom. Dexter Holland and Bad Cop/Bad Cop’s Stacey Dee contribute guest vocals on respectively, the poppy ‘Julio’ and the more experimental ‘Safe Space,’ both of which are solid enough. But then there’s the hardcore rager that is ‘Anything That Moves,’ which doesn’t contribute much of anything.

Like on the band’s past releases, you get pulled in different directions throughout the album’s 23-minutes running time. But unlike say, ‘Must Die’, not all of the songs on ‘Take Back The Night’ take you somewhere you want to go.

 

Track listing:

  1. Forget Me Not
  2. City By The Bay
  3. Devil's Level
  4. Everything And Moore
  5. Take Back The Night
  6. It's You I Don't Believe
  7. Here's Looking At You
  8. Julio
  9. Anything That Moves
  10. Dead In My Dreams
  11. Get Away
  12. You Turn Me On
  13. Nowhere Fast
  14. Safe Space
  15. Trace Amounts

 

 

Tom Dumarey
Tom Dumarey

Lacking the talent to actually play in a band, Tom decided he would write about bands instead. Turns out his writing skills are mediocre at best as well.