Dronte
Quelque part entre la guerre et la lâcheté

What can you really say about a band that calls itself Dodo and calls the debut album somewhere between war and cowardice? That they have a raining umbrella on the cover? You could say that, and the label counts their inspirations to be from Meshuggah to Portishead and many bands in between that. They could seem like a jazz ensemble with many musicians and instruments like contrabass and sax and vibraphone. But they are more than that according to the press material, they claim that the band don’t really fit any of the established labels often used to describe the music. But are they any good or should they just go about the same way as the dodo?

Well, they are quite interesting. Their style is all over the place, yet still fairly coherent and well produced. A band not easily described. The vocals are in French and range from regular singing to talking and growling – I like that they do it in French and it is a rather stylish language. I would say that they are quite varied and interesting from the creative standpoint, but also a band that required a bit of attention but could also work as background music on a lower volume setting, especially if there were no vocals. And they also keep the playing time fairly short and that is always a good thing.

So, they have piled up a few positives but this album isn’t very good overall. The songs don’t really bring me into them, they don’t grab me and I find that I don’t really care about it. They should be commended for finding a style that is their own and that they dare to think a little bit outside the box and so on. But unfortunately I think that this album sounds more or less as alive as the dodo bird. It has its moments but overall I am not interested and I think that Dronte should have been able to create something a lot more interesting from their approach. The jazz elements are what saves the album from being outright boring, but it also needs more dynamics, more tempo, less talked vocals and probably some x-factor that all good albums have.

Not a bad but a rather drab album is what we have been given by this band and it is quite definitive that they will go the way of the dodo. The major question is whether or not they manage to make something exciting before that happens, they certainly have that potential and enough creative thinking to make it happen – but the question is if they will. I am not very impressed by this album and I think that very few of you readers will be impressed, it is an album that should have been better, should have been rather great, but ended up being wasted time.

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