Reviews | June 2009 | Dear Landlord "Dream Homes" LP/CD

Next tuesday, June 30th, I suggest you pick up the debut fullength by Dear Landlord. The band, which features members of the awesome bands Off With Their Heads and The Copyrights, play basic dancable punk rock a la Screeching Weasel and has quickly become one of my current favorites. This is the first release I've heard from the band but they have a few splits out already and a few more in the works which definitely should be worth looking up. If you like the above mentioned groups then this is the new band for you. There's that same gritty feel to the tunes, steady and no messing around - it's just punk rock. What else could you want?
Lyrically "Dream Homes" doesn't have anything to do with dream homes, in fact the overall theme of the album is pretty far from dreamy or happy (the cover has a smashed up trailer on it). Titles like "I Live in Hell", "Park Bench" and "Begging For Tips" should give you a hint of what these songs are about. It's depressing, in true OWTH spirit, but the record is still rad.
A really cool thing about Dear Landlord is that a lot of the vocals are sung by three guys at once. This makes the songs sound "warmer" and certainly takes the sound to another level. I'd recommend this record to pretty much anyone who's into the No Idea-sounding bands and most of all to anyone who likes basic pop-punk. Dear Landlord kicks ass. I'm going to sum up this review with a quote from the press note by Southern Lovin' PR:

"Have you ever held a conch shell up to your ear so you can hear the ocean’s quiet roar? This Dear Landlord record is kinda like that, but instead you’ve woken up bleary-eyed on a dirty couch, stumbled out the front door into the brightly burning 2PM sun, found an empty 40 oz bottle laying in the dirt and held it up to your ear. The echoes of last night’s blackout pour forth and suddenly foggy memories snap sharply into focus. Pangs of regret stab you in the gut like a knife to the back and you start to wonder where it all went wrong."