Free and legal MP3: The Dogs (edgy stomper w/ fuzzbox riff)

“Dance More” – The Dogs

The ongoing surprise of what may prove to be aurally alluring in any given song is one of music’s perpetual delights. In this charged-up, edgy little ditty, The Dogs win me over with that unanticipated gang-style shout of “Hey!” that kicks things into gear at 0:23, demarcating the moment when “Dance More” flips from acoustic crispness into deeply satisfying heaviness, with that two-guitar, fuzzbox-powered riff, as crunchy and classic-sounding as all great guitar riffs must be. Singer Peter Walters takes over from there, his amiable, shouty voice backed, here and there, by some yelping, trumpet-like sounds.

And the thing is, I didn’t realize quite how much I loved that “Hey!” until it came back, just one more time, at 2:14, to finish up what it had earlier started. That moment of recurrence is so perfect—on the one hand, I had almost forgotten about it; on the other hand part of me was clearly waiting for it again—that the entire song becomes retroactively energized. Truth be told this is a rather an odd and disarming piece of work. There’s no real sense of verse or chorus here, just one unhurried descending melody sung in two slightly different variations. Then we get the yelps; then one separate line of lyric, with a more or less one-note melody that’s kind of spoken/sung; then the crunchy riff. We cycle through this curious series twice, and this is somehow a song. And yet with the “Hey!”s as bookends, “Dance More” glows with the bracing vitality of something large and luminous, and all is right with the world.

The Dogs seem to be centered around Chicago, yet the four members are at this point widely scattered—in Minneapolis, in Washington, in Boston, and, go figure, in Norway. The band’s debut album, Camping, was self-released digitally in March, and that’s where you’ll find this song. The album is available on a pay-what-you-will basis from Bandcamp. Thanks to the band for allowing Fingertips to host the MP3.