"I'm the thing your ancestors left for you. / I'm the thing that eats what you no longer have to. / I'm the animal the animals see as animal: / when I stir, they stir, thinking I saw a predator..."
The cavernous hysteria, gothic rock desperation, loaded western noir of "Thistopia" (The Waste Land) by Dog Army, the creation of Saint Marys City, Maryland based Erik Dionne, is at once a dramatic nightmare and a pearly gates opera of sorts, set on a wooden stage with foot lights pointing up in a nondescript town full of sinners and saints who have traveled to the theater in horse drawn carriages (at least in my mind). Excuse the flowery language and the desire to jump off pen to paper cliffs but Dionne's one man universe building stimulates this kind of thing (in me).
So it is, once again, a daring trip to artfully spiral into Dionne's audacious bloodletting especially at this time after someone I deeply love has been suffering from what has historically and informally called the "suicide disease" and most recently has gone under the knife to save her quality of life (No wonder "Buried at the base of your brain" hits me in layers). While listening to Dionne's artfully feral performance like an amalgam of a halcyonic Nick Cave intersected with Mike Patton intersected with a fully lit Jim Morrison, I think that in past times when we deferred to God and Devils instead of doctors and science, it was common for people suffering from all sorts of ailments were shunned as the possessed.
Here, between the trees, Dionne paints with some dark brushes, animalistic sex and violence to unknown ends. The dark poetry rides tightropes such that we don't know if he is the hero or the villain or what that even is during particularly morally bankrupt times. Those questions, those kinds of nightmares seem potently relevant to me at this time in history when too many of us are not really human anymore, not really. AND the musical dystopia here expressed with what feels like ostensibly acoustic engines, fiddles, mandolins, down tuned guitars, sparse piano keys, bellowing stand up bass, percussion like stomping on wooden floors and a dirge of ambient unknown sounds feels like a black and white fever dream in Robert Eggers brain. I, in fact, would hope that he would hear this concept album. It would certainly feel inspirational, I am sure of it.
All this artful splatter though would be nothing without Dionne's vocal performance, something that should be (somehow) performed on stage and filmed. I have not yet listened to the entire album, I need to somehow make time to do so, as I hope you will as well.
-Robb Donker Curtius
LYRICS
I'm the thing your ancestors left for you.
I'm the thing that eats what you no longer have to.
I'm the animal the animals see as animal:
when I stir, they stir, thinking I saw a predator.
I can tell you how many mosquitos it takes
to get to the center of a man.
Do you know who I am?
Have you met me yet?
I'm a bundle of needs reminding you greed
is a survival trait allowing me to feed
and feed my progeny and their greed.
Speaking of sex, it's best when dressed with surplus and season;
temperature south of boiling, north of freezing.
If that's set and we've met,
then just let me bed and spread you
always, after, before, then again, the morning and the sunrise,
sunset, okay, midnight and once again, baby.
Don't tie emotion to it, lady.
Love is just for the safety of our babies.
Do you know who I am?
Have you met me yet?
Buried at the base of your brain.
Buried at the base of your brain.
Buried at the base of your brain.
In birth you see me first—
despite the medical charade—
trembling, disassembling,
through blood, muscle, moans, and pain.
Later, in our nature,
I drive your hands:
to stack two stones;
to bash in the brains of who touches what you own;
to find and bind
what you define as beauty;
to hold full control
over every sentient soul.
Pure power is how an animal
becomes invulnerable.
Take me as you go.
Embittered by the cost of life.
Take me as you go.
The author of every single nightmare.
Take me as you go.
The thought you had which has no word.
Take me as you go.
Three-hundred millenia's lives
have shown me what it takes
to survive.
+ + +
Dog Army consists of one member who writes, performs, and produces all of his songs. Located in Southern Maryland, he plays multiple instruments through his recordings to accompany the narratives he wishes to tell. Unbound to a single genre, Dog Army creates songs that span minimalist folk to multi-layered rock songs from his "Questionable Motives" debut album, released in April of 2021, to his latest sophomore concept album entitled "Woodwose: Exigence & Exodus"
Dog Army, Folk, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock, Gothic folk, blues folk, Dark Americana, singer songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, Maryland, Southern Maryland, "Woodwose: Exigence & Exodus",
I'm the thing your ancestors left for you.
I'm the thing that eats what you no longer have to.
I'm the animal the animals see as animal:
when I stir, they stir, thinking I saw a predator.
I can tell you how many mosquitos it takes
to get to the center of a man.
Do you know who I am?
Have you met me yet?
I'm a bundle of needs reminding you greed
is a survival trait allowing me to feed
and feed my progeny and their greed.
Speaking of sex, it's best when dressed with surplus and season;
temperature south of boiling, north of freezing.
If that's set and we've met,
then just let me bed and spread you
always, after, before, then again, the morning and the sunrise,
sunset, okay, midnight and once again, baby.
Don't tie emotion to it, lady.
Love is just for the safety of our babies.
Do you know who I am?
Have you met me yet?
Buried at the base of your brain.
Buried at the base of your brain.
Buried at the base of your brain.
In birth you see me first—
despite the medical charade—
trembling, disassembling,
through blood, muscle, moans, and pain.
Later, in our nature,
I drive your hands:
to stack two stones;
to bash in the brains of who touches what you own;
to find and bind
what you define as beauty;
to hold full control
over every sentient soul.
Pure power is how an animal
becomes invulnerable.
Take me as you go.
Embittered by the cost of life.
Take me as you go.
The author of every single nightmare.
Take me as you go.
The thought you had which has no word.
Take me as you go.
Three-hundred millenia's lives
have shown me what it takes
to survive.
+ + +
Dog Army consists of one member who writes, performs, and produces all of his songs. Located in Southern Maryland, he plays multiple instruments through his recordings to accompany the narratives he wishes to tell. Unbound to a single genre, Dog Army creates songs that span minimalist folk to multi-layered rock songs from his "Questionable Motives" debut album, released in April of 2021, to his latest sophomore concept album entitled "Woodwose: Exigence & Exodus"
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