Dom: "Happy Birthday Party"

What’s the difference between “It’s so sexy / To be living in America” and “Time to get gnarly / Happy birthday party party”? Slightly more specific pandering? It’s hard to find the line between stupid and stupid-stupid anymore.

Dom’s latest EP Family of Love doesn’t have the same inescapable riffs and pleasantly blown-out sonics as the band’s debut, just slightly less extreme versions of the exact same material. Part of the appeal of Sun Bronzed Greek Gods (2010) was in how its production emphasized the band’s sublime melodic gifts, calling attention to how intrinsically infectious the music was by blowing up all the surrounding theatrics. The insistent focus on huge, unique synth and ingeniously simple lyrics on, say, “Burn Bridges” is reminiscent more of a current rap single like “I’m A Boss” than anything Dom’s Springsteen’d-out rock peers have been popularizing lately.

Dom seems to be trying to become a legitimate rock outfit, though, with the tangly guitar riff on Love‘s penultimate track, “Happy Birthday Party,” showing off what used to slip in naturally on songs like “Jesus.” Here, the mastery of the universally imbued pop song structure they often displayed on Greek Gods has failed them, and in lieu of that (or their transcendent cover of Prince’s “Little Red Corvette”), they’ve forgotten their saving grace. The dim bulb sentiment of “Happy Birthday Party” isn’t, ultimately, its failing; it’s that Dom no longer have the Lex Luger production and swinging sass to pull that sentiment off.