Golden Mixtape

When a book goes from black and white pages to a film, it’s scary…especially if you hold the written words so dear. You fear seeing the characters taken advantage of by Hollywood. Luckily Perks of Being a Wallflower wasn’t overdone and stands strong as an adaptation of a group of misfits silently observed by a young boy named Charlie. Throughout the story (both book and film) surviving adolescence with a head full of confusion and doubt is what drives Charlie, and music is there the whole way through. So when Dads’ American Radass (this is important) started to play, I knew some of those songs would likely be the kind Charlie would put on a mixtape for Sam.

Like Perks, American Radass is full of one-liners that speak volumes for the product as a whole. “Get to the Beach!” has “We can pick out our faults enough to blame our parents” and “Aww, C’mon Guys” has “If they heard what you were saying would they listen anymore?” Both sound like they were ripped from a tattered composition book hidden under the bed of a kid just trying to form something out of the chaos entrapped in their mind.

Keeping with chaos, the music that backs the lyrics sounds like a basement session among friends. Its coarse manner makes it appear like the best of a box full of demos that made the cut. Much like Joie De Vivre’s We’re All Better Than This though, if it wore a pretty mask, it’d lose it’s cool. In the end it’s a musical feast that’s got garage punk chunks with emo croutons scattered about.

Charlie may forever be just a fictional character girls pray was real, but if they want, they can pretend he just grew up and joined a band like Dads and took his aggression and angst out in song on American Radass (this is important). So if you like bands like Dowsing and Brave Bird, check out Dads…not moms, just Dads’ American Radass (this is important), out now on Flannel Gurl Records.