Ezra Furman is a vengeful ball of psyched up, stressed out rage - an angry young man who grabs vintage rock styles and fires them with a restless punk energy.
Having parted ways with his band, The Harpoons, Day Of the Dog follows the slightly more understated balladry of solo debut The Year of No Returning from 2012.
It was recorded at Studio Ballistico in Chicago with the members of his regular touring band The Boy-Friends: Sam Durkes – percussion; Ben Joseph – piano,; Jorgen Jorgensen – bass and Tim Sandusky – saxophone.
It's billed as "A hip-shaking collection of back alley greasy rock n' roll jams" and the Oakland resident does his level best to live up to this hype.
"I have fallen deep in love with nothing" is the Blank Generation message of opening track I Wanna Destroy Myself and his "head full of dead-ends" in the self explanatory Tell 'Em All to Go to Hell maintains the venomous tone.
His plunder of rock history can be traced through the rockabilly rhythms of Walk On In Darkness; the I Love Candy beat At The Bottom Of The Ocean and the ironic doo-wop backing vocals of The Mall in which our hero has been left "broken wide open, bleeding everywhere"
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Meanwhile My Zero and Been So Strange stray into 80’s East Street Band rock territory with prominent sax accompaniment and in the slower title track Furman confronts his demons for a cathartic form of self therapy.
Not subtle (nor is it supposed to be) but fun in a breathlessly manic kind of way.
Ezra Furman's website
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