B-Room by Dr. Dog

Dr. Dog’s B-Room is their seventh full album since 2003. Following the hard act of their success from Be the Void, B-Room falls flat in comparison. With Toby Leaman on bass and vocals, Eric Slick on drums, Zach Miller on the keyboard, Frank McElroy on guitar, Scott McMicken on lead guitar and also vocals, and Dimitri Manos switching between instruments, Dr. Dog brings in some hints of old-time-square-dance-country in this album, which is new to the band.  While I acknowledge that Be the Void is obviously impossible to top, B-Room is a step down from their previous album yet still an accomplishment.

The band is from West Grove, Pennsylvania, and they have a good time. They all have nicknames that start with the letter T, such as Thanks, Teach, and Taxi which are McElroy’s, Slick’s, and McMicken’s, respectively. Their genre has ranged from Psychedlic rock to Lo-fi to Baroque pop, ever since Leaman and McMicken started making music in eighth grade where they wrote original songs. This developed into a proeject called Raccoon, and when their buddies Ted Mark and Doug O’Donnell came in on drums and on guitar the band was Dr. Dog. Mark and O’Donnell left while Dr. Dog had some local fame in Pennsylvania, but never anything more than that. With the release of Toothbrush in 2002, their second album, another band called My Morning Jacket asked Dr. Dog to tour with them. This got the New York Times to notice Dr. Dog, and Dr. Dog signed with Park The Van Records. From here, their fame accelerated. They appeared on four different late night shows: Conon O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman, and Craig Ferguson.

The cover features a door with “B-Room” written on it in a childish font, with a music note for the dash and two film roles for the O’s. Next to the door is a red emergency light which is flashing, illuminating the aread around it to show the dirt on the walls and the door. There is a logo that reads “B-Room LLC” that is both on the door and on the wall next to the emergency light. What the “B-Room” means is vague. Is it a bathroom? Is it some guy named B’s room? The lack of clarity was most certainly intentional by Dr. Dog. Last but not least, photo shopped over the image and is a tacky “Dr. Dog” in yellow and red, which looks like the titles I used to make with WordArt when I was ten years old. At least one thing on the album cover makes sense: the band name.

“Phenomenon” is the fifth song from the album, which has a folk, country vibe that clearly stands out from all of the other songs on the album. Manos switches between the banjo and the fiddle, at one point with a crazy psychedelic violin solo that turns into rhythmic squeaking. “Too Weak to Ramble”, the preceding song, is one of the only songs on the album where the emotion seems genuine. The vocals are the focus, with a muted guitar in the background. The lyrics speak of self-pity, “too low to get up, too weak to try. Too drunk to stagger, too gone to lie.” The verses accelerate into, “I always told myself I’d make it out of here alive,” which the singer belts out, with all of his heart.

“Long Way Down” is my favorite song from the album. The combination of the syncopation from McElroy and McMicken’s guitars, the trumpet that Manos brings in, and the static in the background makes this song funky while nostalgic. It’s a nice lighthearted and fun break after “Too Weak To Ramble”. “Long Way Down” is reminiscent of “How Long Must I Wait” from Be the Void,  in the sense that it has lyrics that ramble off the singer’s tongue, harmonies out the wazoo, and funky syncopated beats that easily blend with the lyrics. In “Long Way Down”, there’s some high-pitched ghostly “ooh”s that introduce the lyrics: “I fell asleep around quarter to four. I had a dream my baby didn’t want me no more”. The lyrics continue to tell a story about the narrator’s ups and downs. The song winds down to just the highhat, a trumpet solo kicks in, some more eerie “ooh”s, and the band repeats, “you can laugh about it, if you just let go”. The advice of the song, to “just let go”, fits in with the funk and the excited trumpet.

B-Room as a whole is disconnected. It’s as if each song wants to steal the spotlight, and Dr. Dog is just trying some new things out. It’s good for artists to try something new, but it doesn’t make a great album when it’s all over the place. B-Room is just some experimentation by Dr. Dog.