De Novo Dahl

In the recessionary climate of the music business of 2005, record companies scrambled to add value to CD packages. Not only were old albums reissued in "deluxe" versions with as much as another full CD of unreleased material, but major artists took to issuing first-time releases with extra takes and video content. In such an environment, why shouldn't an indie band join in? De Novo Dahl, hailing from the college town of Murfreesboro, TN, near Nashville, previously has released only a six-song self-titled EP, but Cats & Kittens, the group's first full-length album, is actually much more than full-length. Cats, if you will, is a 16-track CD, while its counterpart, Kittens, contains the same 16 songs "remixed," as the press release puts it. Of course, these days a remix is anything but a mere re-manipulation of the faders on the studio soundboard, and these remixes are really entirely different versions of the songs with radically different arrangements. To take the material in order, the Cats disc presents a band that seems to have ingested decades' worth of British pop/rock music, specifically the '60s and the '70s. The lighter sides of the Beatles and the Kinks from the '60s are echoed in the music, but even more evident is the influence of '70s U.K. bands like T. Rex (more "Ride a White Swan" than "Bang a Gong [Get It On]") and Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. (Bet these guys could do a mean version of "Make Me Smile [Come Up and See Me].") American influences sneak in here and there, particularly the Beach Boys, Blondie (when Serai Zaffiro sings and the organ cranks up), and the Cars, but it's the Brits that De Novo Dahl really recall, especially when Mark Bond (aka Vovo Dahl) applies his baritone to a song like the ballad "Ryan Patrick Huseman Darrow." But just when you think you've got this group's record collection figured out, along comes the Kittens disc, on which they treat the same material (with altered titles) as it might be performed by the Human League or Depeche Mode, recasting the songs as '80s synth pop when they aren't breaking them down in more informal ways. The listener is forced to reconsider the songs completely, as well as the band, and that's both good and bad. Versatility is a hallmark of strong compositions, and many of these songs work either way. Also, the radical reexaminations mark De Novo Dahl's musical ambitiousness. But they also risk trivializing themselves and their work. After all, what's next? Polka treatments? De Novo Dahl have already been called Tennessee's answer to the B-52's, and they skirt silliness with this album's central gimmick. Nevertheless, that gambit is striking as well as ear-catching. What other debuting artist would take this kind of risk, and how many could execute it as well? ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide