This Old House — Re-Critic

Jul 25

Jul 25 This Old House

Dehd’s newest offering is one that displays its dearths proudly, but the ostensible emptiness they could bring is not what jumps out in the first listens. Rather, spending time with Flower of Devotion is appreciating the memories of all that was there before in a no-fills/no-frills setting that allows for lava lamp laser focus.

The LP is an old house, not dilapidated but a bit of a fixer-upper. The cracking paint in the dining room retains a hue recalling Nothing’s guitar sounds from Tired of Tomorrow. Peel up the rug in the master bedroom and find a gratifying and more methodical approach to Girls’ bedroom indie jangle. The floor plan is wide open and there’s an outdoor shower to spray off beach sand, the ever-present marine air in the kitchen has the dual blown kisses of Bethany Cosentino’s song length and vocal style.

The Windy City three-piece that comprises Dehd is not the first act to craft retro-leaning rock that carries the unmistakable marks of its influences. In many ways, Flower is a take-all-comers challenge to the idea that good-clean-fun music has died or become otherwise non-viable in an age where humankind’s knowledge routinely overshadows its good sense. “Come inside,” it seems to intone with every sliding guitar lick, “see if you don’t find something you’re looking for.”

Perhaps the most striking thing here is another thing that is missing. Any song cycle with similar clear identifiers opens itself up to that most pernicious of cognitive security blankets: nostalgia. A lazy slurry of the stuff is almost guaranteed to congeal over the top of these stylistic hallmarks, cutting off the air and one's ability to see the album critically in a larger sense. But because the influences are buried in that fading paint job or barely visible behind the threadbare curtains, the urge to romanticize it for what it recalls as opposed to what it is remains firmly in the hand of the listener and thereby fully controllable.

Whereas some records would crumble under the weight of the expectation, Flower of Devotion is one that holds up admirably - after all, it’s been at the end of the block since before you were born. It doesn’t require the audience to bring anything to it. Bring only your fondness for a good time, bring only a six-pack to share. Let’s go party in that old house, no one lives there but the hi-fi still works. Let’s remember.