Solska Embraces Chaos and Bares Their Heart on Dance!Dance!Dance!
Dance!Dance!Dance! is a record about dancing, letting out your stress and angst, and perhaps even being genuine to yourself in those stark moments of clarity in between when you’re left with your own thoughts.
On Friday, November 22nd, Solska released the short noisy dance punk album Dance!Dance!Dance! on Bandcamp and streaming services.
Dance!Dance!Dance is as chaotic as it is blistering; as noisy and brash as it is melodic and danceable.
Bandcamp New & Notable Jul 12, 2024
We start, after a nearly ironic moment of silence, with hushed vocals and a quiet guitar piece. The second verse immediately descends into droning, panicked chaos. Suffocating, almost stifling until the vocals are completely drowned out, hidden under the trumpets audible over all else. I was surprised at their presence at first, but this is our first giveaway that we’re steadily into dance punk territory and, rest assured, Solska is our expert guide and knows exactly what they’re doing.
Bandcamp New & Notable Jul 12, 2024
By the second track, "Kids His Age Bounce", we bleed more into Pop Punk territory and borrowing from Weezer, this song continues the buildup from “Garden Angel” by taking that energy and quadrupling it. We’re immediately met with a distorted wall of sound and wailing like some sort of punk show train crash. Solska pushes their vocals so hard in this track that they started coughing and wheezing partway through - a perfect anecdote for the blend of atonal madness and energetic forces at work here. I love the riff at the end.
Already thus far a steadily enjoyable album, the title track is a more stripped-back song. I like the clearer vocals, and a short opportunity to hear Solska more clearly in the spotlight instead of hidden under the wall of sound in one of my favorite lyrical moments of the albums, as the first time we hear Solska clearly is a sensitive, romantic one.
“I met you once, do you remember me/We were at shows and drinking lots of tea/I was the girl in red, you were the boy in blue, you know/And we were dancing like we didn’t have to go back home”
Lending to its dance punk roots we have more horn parts, which offer a perfect counterpoint to the noisy guitar and drums that push themselves to the brink in the background, and again we find Solska’s vocals slipping effortlessly back behind the scenes, coming out again for the next verse.
Following this, on "Teenage Wasteland", we find another another great metaphor for Solska’s brand of chaos and noise, and I love the droning amp feedback we’re met with all the way through. When asked about lyrics for the album, Solska couldn’t remember, but described it as an attempt to combine “danceability and no wave-like atonality.”
Bandcamp New & Notable Jul 12, 2024
Following a short instrumental interlude, "Other Poisons for The Adolescent Mind." is a track that's clearer than those that preceded it, less noisy. But almost as a counterpoint in weighing the scales between vocals and instrument, the vocals have become harsher, harder to hear as they scream them out. Of this song, Solska says “The poisons for the adolescent mind are politics and philosophy.”
It’s no wonder this is one of the best tracks of the album. I love the bass work on this track, the cleaner mixing of the drums. Instead of a wall of sound, which has its place on the rest of the album, this is an ambitious moment of clarity lamenting the poisoning of adolescence. Like an important revelation about the loss of innocence amidst all that teenage angst and pain.
“And when you kill yourself/no one will laugh at you”
“Adolescent Mind now/It all falls apart”
The album is rounded out on "Maisy's Hope" with a very endearing instrumental to that serves as a great finale. Gone is the angst, and instead we find something hopeful and spirited. I like the stark contrast of emotions between this and the rest of the album.
Solska’s Dance!Dance!Dance! is another record that continues to push the boundaries of what it means to be furry music in 2024. It’s a record about dancing, letting out your stress and angst, and perhaps even being genuine to yourself in those stark moments of clarity in between when you’re left with your own thoughts.
Dance!Dance!Dance! is available now on Bandcamp and streaming services.
"I managed to squeeze half my heart into this and the other half just got all over the carpet. Sorry everyone" - Solska