Ten albums is a fair effort by any band’s measure and now, The Dandy Warhols have reached it with their upcoming, Distortland release that is out via Dine Alone Records. Whereas their peers in the psychedelic, disco-rock genre have often stumbled early on, The Dandy Warhols have maintained a string of releases and after a flurry of mediocre albums, Distortland may be the closest they have come to returning to form since 2003’s Welcome To The Monkey House. Their previous attempt, 2012’s This Machine collapsed early on, noted for being a bit of a slog and more of a chore to listen to than a pleasure, similarly the likes of Earth To The Dandy Warhols and Odditorium slipped into sweet nothingness and perhaps this is for the best that they are now to be forgotten.

What Distortland has shown prior to its release with the two singles already available, ‘STYGGO’ and ‘You Are Killing Me’ is that The Dandy Warhols still possess the potential to write a bloody good single whilst washing it in their renowned sonic psychedelia with Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s smoky voice washing over the top. To listen to the likes of ‘You Are Killing Me’ and ‘STYGGO’ is certainly as pleasurable as their earlier material circa-Thirteen Tales or Come On Down. Embedded within ‘You Are Killing Me’ is the return of the guitar chugs, so perfectly demonstrated and coordinated by Peter Holmström – it’s a return of the guitar hooks, it’s a return of the loud-quiet-loud guitar structure and it’s the return of the big chorus that took the likes of ‘Bohemian Like You’ to such heady heights back in the late 90s. When you whittle it down, The Dandy Warhols are not the same creative geniuses they once were, they have lost the experimental tinge that made the likes of ‘Good Morning’ and ‘Minnesoter’ such daring staple points of their career in music. However, in progressing as a pop band they can shed the dead weight that has marred their previous material over the last decade or so, we should take in the glories of Distortland for what they are – guitar-pop wonders without becoming too concerned about what The Dandys once were.

‘STYGGO’ (Some Things You Gotta Get Over) revolves around Brent DeBoer’s jungle drum rhythm – a song that evolves as it progresses, the drunken haze of Taylor-Taylor’s vocals remarkably contrast the sober pop sensibility that ‘You Are Killing Me’ demonstrated. A snapping bass groove lingers under the surface allowing for the rest of the music to cruise on top. It’s slightly more of a sonic bliss, pointing towards the older material that first set them off as a group; it’s not quite as daring however it tests the pulse somewhat. The likes of ‘Catcher In The Rye’ take off from where ‘STYGGO’ sets off, the big chorus is back and falls in line with the stoned guitar sounds and scuzzed, stuttered Zia McCabe synth and you begin to really believe that The Dandy Warhols have found their groove once more. Courtney Taylor-Taylor described Distortland as being "organised like a pop record but [it] still has the sonic garbage in there”, now you begin to get where he’s coming from.

The Dandy Warhols, like many bands have suffered from some sort of post-success self-indulgence at some point, emphasised by the likes of Odditorium that wriggled and writhed within its own pretence and importance. The step that The Dandys have made on Distortland suggests that they have consolidated some understanding of how to utilise all their tricks of psych-pop without verging too far into the egotistical unknown. Their experimental nature is shown on the likes of ‘Doves’ but instead of becoming dull, the dynamic between Zia McCabe’s wishy-washy electronics and Holmström’s shoegaze-esque guitar part leads for a euphoric bliss and it hits all the right notes.

Away from the sandblasted psychedelia, the band fall into their most disco-punk format on the likes of ‘Semper Fidelis’ and ‘Pope Reverend Jim’; songs that bounce along at a quick tempo seeing the return of Holmström’s guitar chug and McCabe’s Welcome To The Monkey House retro synth pulse shows that this band can still write songs to shake your hips to. When it comes to singles, it’s quite hard to ignore the fact that Distortland is by and large made up entirely of them; ‘All The Girls In London’ follows this with its bolshy tempo, something that would plaster the song perfectly into place upon the Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia album. Boisterous choruses sing over the top with the main hook staying present throughout. It’s a four to the floor foot stomper that shakes along with you.

The album as a whole falters slightly with a few songs, the opener does not scream anything special and largely has the potential to throw the listener at the first hurdle if they do not show perseverance – it’s quite odd how ‘Search Party’ is picked to start when there are so many strong alternatives littered throughout. Similarly ‘Give’ lingers a bit at the centrefold, its acoustic, melancholic jam is admirable however it doesn’t really promise much and largely just appears as a pretentious dirge; in a similar fashion to the album’s throwaway closer, ‘The Grow Up Song’. This appears as nothing more than a ‘goodbye song’, Taylor-Taylor’s lyrics hang loosely and sporadically upon a guitar chug that has appeared throughout the album a fair few times by this point. It was good at first but this just adds an unnecessary minute and a half on the end.

The issue with Distortland comes into play when you question what The Dandy Warhols are trying to prove. In comparison to their counterparts, the likes of The Brian Jonestown Massacre who shared the West Coast scene with the band back in the late 90s and early 00s, are The Dandy Warhols still relevant? After finding their peak once upon a time in the late 90s they have certainly been through a bit of drought, however ultimately I argue Distortland acts as a reminder as to why everyone fell in love with The Dandy Warhols in the first place. It’s that slightly camp twist on psychedelic pop that only they can really pull of well, it is their niche that has seldom been touched upon by anyone else. It can occasionally work and within Distortland, they certainly find this equation at times. It doesn’t come across in an overbearing, obnoxious and sickening way either, it is done tastefully and suggests that the band are not yet down and out. This return to form falls on the back of a tour that is selling well in the UK right now and could see a spike in popularity for them. It shows that the band have learnt lessons from their self-indulgence over the past decade and this is a nostalgic shift that shows the band are not to turn corners or try to discover something new any more but perhaps keep going along in a straight forward direction. More power to The Dandy Warhols, maybe they will rule again?
Tom Churchill

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