Sometimes influential bands must be given a gestation period post-breakup so that their influence is given proper due. True innovators that transcend popular talking-point genres don’t ever get ripped off immediately. They are instead blatantly copied years later.
Sometimes influential bands must be given a gestation period post-breakup so that their influence is given proper due. True innovators that transcend popular talking-point genres don’t ever get ripped off immediately. They are instead blatantly copied years later.
Now, though, because of the Internet, the “me too” brushfire rages onward at an unprecedented pace. The year is 2012, the imitator is DZ Deathrays and the heralded source material is Death From Above circa 1979.
If I stopped talking about DZ Deathrays right now and instead reviewed DFA’s 2004 album You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine, you would likely not notice the difference, and instead rush out to buy a copy of that record—which you should.
DZ Deathrays’ album Bloodstreams is pure, unfiltered DFA worship and doesn’t deviate far from that. However, the record does have a small amount of exciting material that doesn’t ape DFA so much.
The song is “Debt Death,” and it’s the only one on the record that isn’t straight out of DFA’s playbook. Disappointingly, it’s very, very good, and it’s the only song of its ilk on the entire effort.
The track begins with a pixilated metallic clamor, when the very DFA 4/4 beat creeps in and immediately gives way to a thrashy downbeat that pauses for a moment of lucidity before exploding into a couple minutes of raw electro-punk fury. Screamers would be proud.
Other than “Debt Death,” let’s get right down to business. DZ Deathrays is a two-person band consisting of a guitar-and-synthesizer player and a drummer. Both members handle vocals.
On Bloodstreams, the listener finds a raw-yet-polished punk record with plenty of four-on-the-floor beats and plenty of impossibly fuzzed-out guitar. The vocals are energetic and swimming in reverb. In fact, at times the vocals are buried in the mix. Yes, this sounds like a blueprint for DFA’s short but highly influential career, but I was talking about DZ Deathrays.
The first three tracks on Bloodstreams—“Teenage Kickstarts,” “Cops Capacity” and “No Sleep”—reek the most of DFA, and it doesn’t do much to shunt any immediate comparisons. It isn’t until “Play Dead” that the band changes its sound up considerably, into more of a subdued no-wavey dance party.
Admittedly, this is another facet of music that DFA failed to present to the world, and deservedly so—“Play Dead” sucks. In fact, it’s so bad and meandering that it’s easy to deconstruct, when the band’s plan of attack is so clearly “unapologetically rip off DFA.” Aside from “Debt Death,” the only times DZ Deathrays veers from the straight-and-narrow into unequaled wussy territory.
When one of a record’s best moments is its squeal-ey, synth-laden intro track, that’s a shame. However, that is exactly what you’ll get on Bloodstreams: a good intro, the kick-off of a good idea that falls flat.
This isn’t to say that Bloodstreams is a bad record per se; it’s just painfully uninspired to the point of anger. It’s not enough that the band uses the same exact tonal array and mastering techniques as its original counterpart; it’s that the riffs and drum work sound like DFA was some kind of ghostwriter. As a fan of DFA, one would be hard pressed to hear DZ Deathrays and think otherwiwse.
If there’s one thing on Bloodstreams that improves—however slightly—on You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine, it’s the vocals. Admittedly, the singing on DFA’s album was inspired and fitting for the mix and tonal palette. Six years later, the vocals have likely been analyzed to death by DZ Deathrays and improvements have been made.
Listeners will find that the vocals on much of Bloodstreams have a tinge more energy than DFA’s. Songs like “LA Lighting,” “Teenage Kickstarts” and the aforementioned “Debt Death” drip with energy in parts, and for those of you that ever wanted to wring more angst out of DFA’s vocals, you now have a solution six years later.
The closing track, “Trans-am,” will make you cringe because it sounds like a jam session. When a record’s intro is so powerful, doesn’t a band owe listeners an equal effort on the tail end? DZ Deathrays certainly doesn’t think so. No amount of weird, saturated filter resonance howls at the end can save that sinking ship.
It was 2006 when DFA released their only studio album, and it was six full years later that we almost got a proper sequel. The record might have been more acceptable had DFA not announced their reunion in 2011, then promptly scheduled a full tour and confirmed dates in 2012. Had this not happened, DZ Deathrays might have fooled enough people to make its mark.
Unfortunately for two youths from Australia, the kings are back, and DZ Deathrays will have to settle for being the bitter successor that prays every night for coronation.
