GANG OF LOSERS - THE DEARS
“Why can’t everyone live out happily ever after,” Dears singer Murray Lightburn laments on the emotionally charged “Bandwagoneers” from the group’s new “Gang of Losers.” This sentiment is felt throughout each track on the set, as Lightburn’s Morrissey-tinged croon narrates struggles with everything from love and war to social stigmas and race. The sound here moves from jaunty, hook-laden choruses (”Ticket to Immortality”) to stripped-down ballads (”There Goes My Outfit”) and jazzy, horn-inflected grooves (”Find Our Way to Freedom”). The tone of the album isn’t entirely dark and hopeless, although Lightburn fails to leave us with any specific resolve, content for some questions to remain unanswered. We’re OK with it, too, as long as the Dears keep making music like this. Billboard
October 7th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
I got this album for my birthday and I’d never heard the The Dears before. Sure I’d heard of them, but now they’re my favorite band. I really like the songs “Ticket To Immortality” and “Ballad Of Humankindness” but I reckon the most fun to listen to is probably “Whites Only Party”. Also on the second CD, my favorite track is the first one; not sure what it’s called but I love it. It goes something like… “I realise, it’s not you. It’s about me…” or something like that.