7/21 - The Dodos

It's actually my hope that I'm not pointing out anything new with this post. In a perfect world, anyone who might read this would already own at least the Dodos' easily obtainable last album, Visiter that came out a couple of years ago around the same time the Fleet Foxes released their first full length album. Frankly, it's been an unending source of confusion to me as to why Fleet Foxes are bigger than Jesus, but The Dodos have remained somewhat below the radar. On the surface, they both have the sonic quality of a sunlit Smoky Mountain stream - all soft acoustic jangling, pastoral harmonies, rim-clicking insect drums - but the Dodos bear the distinction of being equally compared to Animal Collective, i.e. another band whose sound has sent many a bearded boy's tighty witeys straight to the laundry pile, yet are not nearly as obtuse and inscrutable in the melody department as those indie giants.

So will the upcoming third album, Time to Die be the one that sets The Dodos afire? Will this trio from San Francisco rise above the status of JV team little brother to these Varsity superstars? Shit, I don't know. So far, the preview single "Fables" that has appeared on their myspace recently isn't grabbing me and yanking my eyes back into the back of my head like "Fools," "The Ball," and "Trades and Tarriffs" with their finger-picking tent-revivial goodness. But it's nice enough to make me look forward to mid-September when I can hear the rest.

I do have to note that I saw them play in front of the American Mammal Diorama in the Natural History Museum near USC, and that is hard to top. But, a close second may be arriving. The Dodos will be playing at The Getty on August 8th.