The New Dress
Where Our Failures Are
Red Leader
This month’s new discovery that I would like to shout to the rafters is The New Dress. It’s a boy, a girl and a guitar playing simple punk-colored folk songs, or maybe folk-colored punk songs. Think an acoustic Against Me! with a girl’s voice thrown into the mix. The strumming is fast and crisp, the voices caress one another easily, and the lyrics are as clever and lovelorn as they are politically aware. And damn if it isn’t catchy upon the very first listen!
Bill Manning and Laura Fidler make up this minimalistic Brooklyn team, and Where Our Failures Are is their debut for Red Leader Records. As much as it’s in keeping with those politically aware punks from Gainesville, it’s also eerie in its authentic ’90s sound. Fidler’s voice in particular sounds like she could have pinch hit as a vocalist for That Dog or Vaselines.
This pair keeps it simple, so I’ll do the same. The album is amazing, and I’ve played it so many times in the last week that I pretty much know all of the words to every damn song on here! Every track is great, but the standout, turn-it-up-all-the-way tune is “Yeah But No.”
Red Leader Records: http://www.www.red-leader.com
