The Dao Son For - s/t
(Country Club Records 2002, 0101)
The Dao Son For - s/t
(Country Club Records 2002, 0101)
From Aural Innovations #22 (January 2003)
The Dao Son For are a new guitar/drums/bass/keyboard combo from NY. The CD starts off with a fairly spacey driving bit with plenty of keyboards, gets kinda proggy towards the end, pretty tight rhythm section. "Co-Work Co." is a somber indie-rock tune with dry recitation of absurd lyrics - here the group's affiliation with the Rugburns is noticable, but DSF is more serious (and honestly not as catchy and the singer's voice is too emo-whiny for me). A pretty good tune, though.
"Lee Corado" is more dissonant post-punk really, maybe a bit like Fugazi or something? (I can't know, that ain't really my bag). "The Crawler" is a decent bit of surf-rock of the slower eerie sort. "Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars" bores and depressed me - the type of dragging somber rock that I just can't get into. "The Drawler" is a short instrumental with a Can-like approach to the drumming. "La Valencia Hotel" is more surf of the faster kind - evil guitar, organ, theremin, boom-Bah-Bah boom-Bah drums... this is okay, but not much of a spin on what's already been done to death. The album ends with the line "from now on..." repeated, and it's just too familiar sounding, but not in a good way.
These guys do mix up a number of different styles, so maybe more stylistic focus would help. Lack of power (and originality) is their dilemna, and the top-notch studio sound doesn't mean much until they can dig down deeper. Or maybe it's just a "taste thing" and some one else will dig it. Always possible.
For more information you can visit The Dao Son For web site at: http://www.thedaosonfor.com.
Contact via snail mail c/o Country Club Records; 34-31 75th Street; New York, NY 11372.
Reviewed by Chuck Rosenberg