Dog Fashion Disco Cd Review Essay, Research Paper

“Anarchists of Good Taste”

What do you think of when I say this for a band name, Dog Fashion Disco? You never heard of them, have you? There a Five piece band from Washington DC, who are signed with Spitfire Records. Their lineup consists of Jeff Siegel/keyboards, Stephen Mears/bass, Tod Smith/vocals/guitar, John Ensminger/drums, and Greg Combs/guitar. Their new CD, “Anarchist of Good Taste”, was produced by Drew Manzurek and was released on March 6, 2001.

Their type music is a genre of music within itself. It’s heavy and powerful with a circus/vampire type trance sound to it. The drums off beat rhythms and the keyboards creepy melody lines are what gives them there sound. The group combines typical heavy metal elements with eerie horror show sounding elements. “When you listen to Dog Fashion Disco you realize what it’s like to be chased by an evil clown with a knife.”, to quote Matt Holt of Nothingface. The album shows more musical talented then any other metal band, ever.

The vocals are a combination of spoken word, horrific screams and well-sung melodies. The lyrics are twisted, aggressive and horrifying. “I’m coming to California to kill you, I’m coming to rape and murder your family” from the song “Headless” and “You’ve got me hanging by my throat, swinging from a tree, swaying in the breeze, as I die my eyes glaze over , swinging from a tree, swaying in the breeze” from the song “the Vertigo Motel” are two examples of DFD’s lyrics. The songs sound as much or more twisted then the lyrics do.

The song “the Vertigo Motel” starts off with piano, bass and vocals. It’s sounds like a love melody at first until you hear the lyrics. The lyrics are about a person hanging from a tree by their throat. The song changes parts many times, within a short period of time. It changes from piano melody to circus trance to heavy metal to jazzy and back and forth from one to another. This is one of the many songs that gives them their unique style. It’s one of the best and one of the most musically talented songs featured on the album. Another song, “Cartoon Autopsy”, has an eerie organ played over off beat drums with well-sung vocals, which makes it sound like a vampire movie theme. This changes to the chorus that is heavy and complex with more of a typical metal song.

Dog Fashion Disco is very hard to compare to any other band. “Their music has been compared to the likes of Mr. Bungle for having an eerie death circus atmosphere. While all members credit Mr. Bungle and System of a Down as influences, the group has something special all their own” a quote from a CD review by Lydia Wolberg.

“A.O.G.T” is clearly one of the years best new albums. It has no low points and no disappointments. Its musical talent exceeded any other heavy metal band and is very entertaining from track 1 to track 11. On a scale from 1 to 10, I give it a 20. If you have not listen to it before, I suggest you go out and buy it or download it off the computer. This CD has aggression, experimentation, humor, pain, a message and talented musicianship all rapped in one case. What else can you ask for?