Dad Rocks! - Digital Age

Label: Kanel Records Release date: 12/04/10 Website: Myspace Starting with a song called 'Aroused by Hair', which contains lyrics like "aroused by hot showers and by hair, that's good because it is everywhere", you know the next twenty-five minutes of your life are going to be a little bit different. In case you didn't know, Dad Rocks! is the solo moniker of Snævar Njáll Albertsson; the singer/guitarist of Danish band Mimas and Digital Age is his debut EP. Lyrically, Snævar has always had his tongue firmly in his cheek and that's not changed with his latest project; yet it doesn't define what the record is about. Instead, we are confronted with a diary of a man at the end of the world, unloading his worries. 'Kids', which is perhaps the shining track of this EP, starts with Snævar telling us bluntly "Kids today are immature and rely heavily on Internet tools, such as Wikipedia, they don't buy books, they don't care". It's almost defeatist in its nature, like he's telling us that we're all screwed and there's not a god-damn thing we can do about it but then the bridge section drops, the arrangements become much richer and suddenly you don't care. You're happy. You're safe. I could quite easily be reading far too much into it, but it's hard not to feel something when listening to Digital Age. Vocally it's less dynamic than what you get with Mimas, but that's what makes it so interesting. For the most part it's like he's talking directly at you. It's the equivalent of various hostage scenes from Hollywood films; the victim is holding a sign saying 'I'm fine' but they're miming the words 'help me'. He's got a secret but he's not quite ready to share it with us. Musically it's beautiful, with his acoustic guitar taking full control, though not as sparse as you would imagine. Each song is arranged beautifully, with various instruments (and hand-claps) swelling in and out of the mix with complete ease and respect to the song in question. 'Dirty Carpet' is a good example, with Snævar's vocals soaring over a sea of brass and acoustics, culminating in one of the most uplifting moments of the EP. Each song seems to serve the greater good too, as they all melt into each other naturally. That's not to say this record lacks definition, not at all, it just works better as solid unit. As far as debut EP's go, this is by far one of the most enjoyable I've heard in quite some time and as far as EPs go in general, it's near perfect.