Dragons Here Are The Roses

Pop culture in the information age is such that it is rare to find anything that hasn't been done, in parts if not whole. "Spot the reference/influence" has become less an act of scholarly erudition and more a rather easy parlor game. It seems to be less about the originality and unique effect of any work of art and more about how skilfully old elements have been chosen and arranged, and what success they achieve. Still, this is rather defeatist thinking, and it sometimes is exaggerated. Even a band like Interpol who clearly evokes other bands does not sound exactly like them and does have their own unique power, loathe as some are to admit it.

Then we have a band like Dragons, who begin Here Are The Roses sounding deeply familiar and never drop that feeling for a moment, so much so that it becomes an active distraction to listening to and assessing the music on its own. It isn't that they're bad, at least not technically. A few reviews have defended their naked derivativeness, saying they at least acknowledge their influences and ape them passionately and well. The imitation at work, however, is closer to professional and competent.

With no shame, Dragons essentially sound like more unique bands such as Editors and Interpol, much more so than those bands sound like Joy Division, though those bands sound more genuinely like Joy Division, in terms of rawness and personal emotion, than Dragons ever manages to while trying much harder. If Dragons add anything to the modern sounding like Joy Division playbook, it is glossing it up a little more, smoothing out the guitars and leaning heavier on the synths, and drifting closer to goth pandering. Attempts are made to incorporate ideas like explosive, primal drums and scratchy guitars occasionally, but they still end up swallowed in a plastic sheen that envelops all of Here Are The Roses, which even manages to neuter the immortal bassline to She's Lost Control, in one particularly shameless and failed lift.

Once again, I wouldn't call Dragons bad. I also wouldn't entirely call it art. They all play and understand their parts well, and listening one song at a time, one can sense real potential and ability, and some of these songs could be hummable if you heard them in a vacuum at the right time. It is listening to the entirety of Here Are The Roses that depresses (and not in that good Joy Division way). For the entire band to be so tuned into such a workmanlike and bland recreation of others sound cannot be mere coincidence or collision of inspirations. Dragons have made exactly the record they intended, and it is dull.