Even though they once enjoyed a solid spell as the next-big-things of Canadian indie rock, Montreal's The Dears have always been underdogs at heart. The band is keenly aware of this. After taking forever to tweak with what should've made their coronation, they released their second LP (2003’s No Cities Left) and found that much of the world had moved on without them, never giving them the same accolades enjoyed by similar then-up-and-comers Broken Social Scene and Stars. The title of their next record? Gang of Losers.
If the band was trying to move forward by having a good laugh at their own expense, real life decided there was a little more life in the joke yet. By the time of 2008’s quite underrated Missiles, a full-scale mutiny had taken place, temporarily leaving behind only husband-and-wife founders Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchuk to guide the ship. In some ways, this played right into the band’s hands. For a group so steeped in a Morrissey-style brand of self-pity and grandiose malaise, tragedies such as this could seem to have fallen like manna from heaven. But the total lack of cohesion within their ranks and a listening public that was continually drifting away from them had many feeling that this latest setback would be the one to break the band.
So it’s rather impressive just how inspired and uplifting a record Degeneration Street is. While hardly without its moments of introspection and even heavy-handed worry and woe, the record is full of tunes that are brisk and compelling. The Dears have never had a problem writing a catchy song and then playing it with complete abandon. This album is falling all over itself with examples of this: "Blood", "Thrones", "5 Chords" and "Yesteryear" all fit the bill. Similarly, the moments where things do get weepy ("Lamentation", "Galactic Tides") are bloody gorgeous and never overstay their welcome (even if the 11-minute closer off Missiles, "Saviour", is one of the best things the band has ever done, they wisely do not try to repeat that feat here). What the album lacks in signature tension-building jams and psychedelic washes of noise, it makes up for in what pound-for-pound has to be the best bunch of tunes they’ve ever put together on an LP.
It also brings the focus back squarely to the two assets that had people falling over themselves about The Dears initially. The first is shit-hot musicianship—even when they dip into a cliched blues-rock lick here or there, the band plays these tunes with euphoric vigour and an endless variety of feel. The second, of course, is Lightburn’s voice. The man is a frighteningly capable and committed singer. And if, as certain websites have been overly eager to point out, you think he’s guilty of bringing it too much, all the time, well, so be it. But for my dollar, you could gag the man and he’d still find a way to sing with more guts and heart than 95% of singers out there. That’s because both Lightburn and The Dears in general are indeed a street gang of losers, a rabid pack of underdogs chewing in every direction for the scraps from the world’s table. Are their enemies real or imagined? Are their plights really as horrible as perceived? Are they just a bunch of maudlin babies?
Really, who cares? This is passionate, human rock music. That’s worth something. It’s worth quite a lot, actually.