Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound

Album Review

Between their playfully outré fashion sense, the goofy monikers adopted by the bandmembers, and their trendy embrace of the remix, it's hard not to get the feeling De Novo Dahl are working very hard to seem weirder than they really are. Because for all the semi-psychedelic shimmer in their production and vintage synthesizers in their arrangements, De Novo Dahl's second full-length album, Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound, sounds like the work of a fairly traditional pop band — and a very good one. Between the widescreen pageantry of "Marketplace," the good-foot R&B undertow of "Shakedown," and the anthemic pomp-pop of "Shout," there's plenty of stuff on Move Every Muscle that would sound right at home on a good mid-'70s radio station once a few of the right angles of the production had been buffed off, and the vocal stylings of Joel Dahl and Serai Zaffiro are appropriately engaging and enthusiastic. The band sounds tight and energetic on these sessions, with Dahl's guitars and Matthew Hungate's keyboards sounding bring and full of bite, and bassist Keith Lowen and drummer Joey Andrews bring a solid beat to the music. There are moments on Move Every Muscle where De Novo Dahl seem to want to be the next Flaming Lips (David Fridmann, the Lips' frequent studio hand, mixed four of the tracks), but at heart they seem more like the B-52's, a band that plays smart pop music with a wink, a smile, and a sense of fun, and there's nothing at all to be ashamed of in that.