New record review - Dead Sara 'Pleasure to Meet You'

Dead Sara Pleasure to Meet You - 31 Mar 2015

I'll always remember my first listen to Dead Sara, the 2012 self-titled.. SOUL=BLOWN. It's a good thing I had that one electronically, otherwise I would have worn out the plastic before I wore out the songs. So the follow-up record had big shoes to fill. 2015’s Pleasure to Meet You didn’t hit me quite as hard right away, but after a few listens to study its nuances, I found it to be just as solid a rock record, if not more so, compared to the first one. This is tighter musically, and the songs are denser, and take longer to unpack. but Pleasure has one great song after another. LA City Slum has an exciting, rolling rhythm that kick-starts the record. Mr Mr has some funky bass lines and shimmering guitar power that crescendos into some damn-near metal. Greaser relaxes things a bit and could stand alongside any classic rock song. The most fascinating song on the record may be Blue which is bluesy and rough with sparkling guitar riffs to polish its rough edge. Emily’s passion is in full bloom here and, as usual, her Joplin-Meets-Cobain vocals put it over the top to masterpiece status.

It’s hard to say anything bad about this record. I will say that I’m not so impressed by Mona Lisa. Maybe it’s just because I played it dozens of times before getting the rest of the record, but that is the one I’m most likely to skip. It has all the great riffs of Dead Sara song, but not the soul. It almost feels like a cover. One other thing, the part at the end of Suicidal about the drum beat.. that part is lame. I usually skip the last 20 seconds of that song.

The thing that first struck me about Dead Sara was the raw passion.. this new band doing something that should have been done a long time ago.. playing Rock’N’Roll like it fucking matters. Because to them, to us, it does. That feeling comes through loud and clear on this record. A record they made because they had something to say, a sound to share, and it had to be said loudly and passionately.. almost desperately. This is what Rock’N’Roll has always been, or rather, what it always should have been.

10/10