Good news everyone, they’re still apparently elephants.
So remember how I mentioned this week’s article might be about playing around on your phone in public? Yeah, that’s not going to be happening. Instead I’m going to talk about Death From Above 1979 for a few reasons. The first is that their new album “The Physical World” came out today; their first full length studio album in a month shy of a decade. The second is that I will be going to see them this Friday at the MRCY Block Party (along with Metric, Neutral Milk Hotel and some others). So a new album and a show all in the same week means that this article gets to exist today. BEHOLD. I’m going to give you fair warning, the actual review portion of this article is pretty far into it, if you want to skip ahead, just look for the bold text that says “Was it worth the wait?”. I won’t even be mad.
Something strange happened to DFA 1979 when they broke up, it took a little while, but by breaking up right as they were on the rise they left their fan base wanting more and somehow made them more popular. Not only that, but people were discovering the band only to find out they already didn’t exist anymore. Officially they broke up in August 2006, but that had been after several months of not doing anything or playing any shows, so the “real” break up date would probably be a few months earlier. Anyhow, details of the breakup aside, the band managed to ascend even further than when they were actually together. Instead of being just a cool band from Toronto who make energetic noise-pop, they were now this legendary band you never got to see live even though everyone says their shows were amazing and now your life is incomplete.
I got to see them in 2004 I think during Pop Montreal and in the haze of a decade’s worth of shows and substance abuse I recall having an amazing time. I also feel like I saw them another time before the breakup but I can’t be sure. No matter. They were gone, I felt like I didn’t get to see them enough, a lot of people never got to see them. The legend grew.
Fast forward to 2011 when they were suddenly playing a handful of shows including an appearance at Osheaga. At this point there was no real indication that they were actually going to be getting back together and making new music, so we only had to take this as a “reunion”. Whatever, it was another chance to see them again so I was there. They killed it and were a highlight of the whole festival. I got to rock out to Sebastien Granger and Jesse Keeler one more time and that would be that, or so I thought. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
