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Jul 04, 2018 Web Exclusive By Lee Adcock

Bands consistently pitch themselves as the next voice for this troubled generation. And sure, the dialogues that spin out of that shuffle need to be heard—but then who’s the real artist, and who’s just waving for your attention? And, more importantly, who are you gonna invite when you just want to order pizza and hang out?

Just ring up Dumb! Rather than proselytizing on relevant issues, these four slackers from Vancouver prefer to write perky vignettes that peel out of the driveway in two seconds flat and leave skidmarks on your skull. Indeed, for their third album, Seeing Green, they seem even more keen than ever to rip past any high brow concepts, careening through bite-sized collages of manhandled phrases and cropped pictures just for the sheer giddy rush. “Warming Up” blasts through a string of unfinished sentences (“they’re headed straight for…I think it’s time for”); “Ripesnakes” rips business jargon to shreds; and the speaker in “Hard Sea” gets paranoid over an approaching seagull. These are songs that pals write together, like the Vine videos that become in-jokes between best buds.

With the hummable bass lines and Franco Rossino’s wry delivery, Dumb often sound like a rendezvous at Cookout between Minutemen and Pavement (and, for the studious, Fly Ashtray). That’s not a problem at all, but Seeing Green sneaks in a few other tricks, too, like the twangier rodeo of galloping guitars in “Cowboy” and the gentler “Soft Seam”. And while the idiot savant gags tend to catch your ear first (like a couplet in “Cowboy” that rhymes “chaps and Stetson” with “before you step, son”, or the strategically placed cowbell in “Barnyard”), there’s some tender moments in there too, especially in the rare three-part harmony on “Magistrate”.

All this points to the most crucial point—namely, that Dumb seem pretty rad, and would probably be okay with whatever toppings you ordered for the pizza. (www.dumbband.bandcamp.com)

Author rating: 7.5/10