GOAN DOGS – EP REVIEW


Goan Dogs – Roll the Dice EP 
Goan Dogs - Roll The Dice EP 

Release Date: Out Now

The Bristol scene is so hot right now, so hot, and it’s only a matter of time before one of the city’s bands blows up in a big way. Goan Dogs are in the play-off positions of bands wanting to move on up to the next league and their new EP, ‘Roll the Dice’, finds the quintet in fine form. Opening track and recent single ‘Passing Through’ is a blinder of an opening track that I’ve gone in to in great length elsewhere on this blog but for those that don’t have the patience you just need to know that it’s a wonderful piece of perspective inducing psyche-pop that is good for the soul. ‘Hotbox’ is up next and the lo-fi production qualities hit you first but the imaginative melodies and sweet vocal harmonies catch you with a swift follow up that puts you in mind of Talking Heads, The The and Elvis Costello writing for Squeeze.

The head-bobbing rhythm of ‘Brother (From Another Mother)’ is gorgeous but is still eclipsed by the sickly sweet and woozy guitars that sound like that feeling you get when you’ve been daytime drinking in a dark bar only to emerge blinking in to the 4.00pm daylight to negotiate the highstreet in a mission to get to Tesco without walking in to a school kid or knocking over an old lady (I’m not sure that’s an official guitar sound…. like flange). The EP closes out all too soon with the eccentric sounds of ‘The Grid’ that blends the spirits of Arcade Fire, the Divine Comedy and Cosmo Sheldrake in to an eye-popping cocktail of sultry bass notes and those slinky guitars all pinned down by blasts on a foghorn-like horn blast. What Goan Dogs seem to capture so effectively is the essence of escapism which we all seek throughout our lives so it would be no surprise if these guys were to open up a weekend retreat on the edge of Bristol. Not a cult, mind, a retreat. For now…..