Scene and Heard

Beloved Philadelphia band Dr. Dog are poised to release a staggering burst of vital rock ‘n’ roll with their new record Be The Void. The album hits stores this February 7th via Anti-Records and is the raucous follow up to the group’s critically lauded Shame, Shame. 

While the band’s previous records boasted meticulously crafted symphonic pop, this time around the band turns up the guitars and delivers a truly great cathartic rock ‘n’ roll album played with near reckless abandon and passion.

With the addition of new drummer Eric Slick and electronics-percussionist-guitarist Dmitri Manos, the band entered the studio (Meth Beach) with a renewed sense of enthusiasm and confidence, tracking the songs liveto perfectly capture the rough and tumble energy of their renowned live show.

“We would just get in the pocket and go with it because it sounded great,” bassist-vocalist Toby Leaman explains. “There wasn’t this endless deliberating. We just went with our gut feelings on things.”

“It was reminiscent of when we were starting out and were these fearless weirdoes in a basement, so confident and reckless and bold,” guitarist-vocalist Scott McMicken adds. “It was really liberating.”

The songs on Be The Void flawlessly combine Dr. Dog’s adventuresome and expansive arrangements with a far leaner and meaner primal sound. The beats are harder, the guitars louder and edged with a warm distortion. “Guitars stopped being problematic and started becoming very exciting to us,” McMicken explains.

From the rollicking re-imagined blues of the disc’s title track to the searing guitars of “Vampire,” the frenetic punk urgency of “Over Here Over There” and the beautifully fuzzed out rock of “Warrior Man,” Dr. Dog’s Be The Void is a truly great rock ‘n’ roll record and the unmistakable sound of a band whose moment has arrived.

Be The Void Track Listing:
Lonesome
That Old Black Hole
These Days
How Long Must I Wait
Get Away
Do The Trick
Vampire
Heavy Light
Big Girl
Over Here, Over There
Warrior Man
Turning The Century