Dakota/Dakota
Shoot in the Dark
Arms Reach
There are moments in the never-ending math equation of Dakota/Dakota’s Shoot in the Dark where all three instruments (guitar, bass and drums) slip completely out of sync, out of step with one another. It’s almost like the sheer scope of what they are trying to accomplish overwhelms them for a fraction of a second before they rein it back in. When they right themselves Dakota/Dakota are pretty impressive. At its best, this album sounds like careening geometric shapes crashing into each other and forming new, hybrid shapes/riffs as a result, played by a trio of robots programmed for maximum attention deficiency.
However, not every change in time signature proves to be a good one. Some of the tracks collapse, or at least buckle, under the homogeneity in sound. It’s surprising this doesn’t happen more often since the band’s dynamic rarely changes over the disc’s ten songs. Only “Bruises Are Buttons For Pain,” with its solo acoustic guitar, truly breaks the mold. A couple of songs trimmed off and a little more emphasis on texture variation, and Dakota/Dakota would have a great instrumental math-rock album.
Arms Reach Recordings: http://www.armsreachrecordings.com/ • Dakota/Dakota: http://www.dakotadakota.com/
