Danananan Aykroyd
Hey Everyone!
Best Before
By Mike Randall
Out to inject the wild and crazy back into black-rimmed rock, Glaswegian six-piece Dananananaykroyd are the indie equivalent of Metallica, cranking out aggressively long (well, they end well after you expect them to), winding songs that are backboned with melodic hooks and pop sensibility. With their debut full-length, Hey Everyone!, they strive to dismantle the staid, posed practices they believe to be infiltrating modern music, and with the power they release not many will stand in their way. Unable to be pigeonholed into any specific genre of the styles they play, but remarkably true to each, Danananana is simultaneously fierce, brutal and energetic – and a hell of a lot of fun.
A European writer recently described Dananananaykroyd’s sound as the musical equivalent of a collision between two bands; he might have been conservative in that number. What Danananana calls ‘fight pop’ is mostly derivative of punkers like Black Flag and Fugazi, but there’s a whole lot else in the mix. Two drummers and two vocalists thrive off each other, while angular riffs battle shit-fast chord changes at ear-splitting volume. Instrumental interludes seem to come out of left field not only as respites for the listener, but for the band to re-charge their batteries to restart the pummeling a few measures later.
Much of what appears on Hey Everyone! has been heard before on their Sissy Hits EP and other 7” releases, but the reincarnations are worth the price of admission alone. Songs like the forceful “The Greater Than Symbol & The Hash” are constructed with heavy-metal precision, growing and slithering at a furious pace. About three-quarters into it, just when you get the sense it’s grinding to a halt, an instrumental-and-scream break hits with the momentum of a toppling city. The jangly riffs and post-punk weirdness of “Infinity Milk” has been expanded to an actual song, while the shotgun guitars of “1993” morph into a dream-like Modest Mouse detour while the band chants, “Turn your hissy fits into sissy hits.” The dichotomy that makes Hey Everyone! such a compelling listen is evident as the manic Beastie-ness of “Watch This!” finds the band freewheeling one minute, and funky and fun the very next, only to follow-up that ear-shattering ferocity with the wildly catchy “Black Wax.” With ecstatic choruses of ‘woo,’ “Black Wax” is pure pop bliss that will be in your head for a long time to come.
At a minute in length, the title of the album’s shortest track, “One Chance,” might offer the most insight into Dananananaykroyd for a prospective listener. It’s a frantic metal-punk-funk sort-of instrumental that is thunderously loud and fast, as screams of “One chance!” ring throughout. One chance just might be the motto these guys live by because they perform every song like they’re never going to play another one, and they’re not going to cheat themselves or their listeners. There’s no faking that kind of urgency.
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