Album Review: Death By Dance – “I Am The Verse”

When I received the download for this EP early last week, I expected to have the review ready for publication by Thursday or Friday at the latest. But, as with many things in life, it didn’t work out the way I’d planned. My wife and I both came down with a particularly nasty strain of the flu that kept us from doing anything beyond laying on the couch for the last seven days. While it definitely sucked, the good thing that my cold did was give me more time to listen to this release before writing it up. Initially, I was less than thrilled with the music that I heard on Death By Dance‘s “I Am The Verse” EP. I didn’t think that it was bad… it just didn’t do much for me the first couple of times that I listened to it. But now, after having that chance to listen to the album a few more times, it’s really growing on me.

When I listen to a disc that I’m going to review, I go through it three or four times before I write it up. Usually, unless it really sucks, I’ll listen to it once again as I type the review. I’m the type of listener that if an album does not catch my attention within the first few times that I hear it, I move on. There is so much music in the world and I have so little time to listen to it… but since I was ill and Death By Dance was on my iPod, I played the EP a few more times and found that it was actually quite good.

The word “dance” is in the title, so I figured I’d hear some kind of punk-pop disco mix, not unlike Daryl Palumbo’s awesome side project Head Automatica. Death By Dance, however, is a different beast than I expected. This Australian three-piece play a style of music that is closer to the Epitaph band Heartsounds than it is to any dance music (punk tinged or not) that is available at your local record store.

The dueling male and female vocals make these songs feel unique and refreshing. The girl, for what it’s worth, is the far better singer of the two though. My favorites on this release are “Breathing On The Phone”, “Pseudo Romance,” and “Let Go.” “Breathing On The Phone” is the slowest and longest track on the release. This song is well sung and contains a pretty cool hip-hop type break down. “Pseudo Romance”, is a faster-paced song with a sample from the movie “American Psycho” worked into it. “Let Go”, is a 1980’s new wave sounding song. Three of the six tracks on this release are wonderful in their own way, while the other three are just OK. As a whole I enjoyed this release, but each time I listened to it, I found myself looking forward to the three songs I mentioned earlier. If it was possible, I’d give this album a 3.5 star rating but as of now I give it a three. That is not bad in any way, but I’m hoping for more when the next Death by Dance release comes out. I’ll be waiting to hear it.