One of my most anticipated albums of the year, Celebrity Therapist, has finally arrived. If you are not already listening to The Callous Daoboys, you are doing yourself a disservice. Prior to the release of the album, they released three singles to build the anticipation. While all amazing songs, I could not stop coming back to “What Is Delicious? Who Swarms?” and I could not wait for the day the entire album dropped.
The album opener, Violent Astrology, is easily one of the most interesting songs I have heard released this year. Combining psychedelic elements with their typical crazy mathcore sound we are blessed with one hell of an opener. Following is the first single that was released, A Brief Article Regarding Time Loops. From fast and punchy verses to a spoken dialogue, this song has it all. Not to mention some of my absolute favorite lows of all time following the dialogue. Just when you think this song is over, there’s more to come. If absolutely nothing else, The Callous Daoboys always have you on your toes.
Beautiful Dude Missile moves us into the third track and is all sorts of interesting. Various elements combine to make a rollercoaster of a song, but this might just be working its way up my list of favorite songs from the band. I think this song does a great job of showing the musical versatility that The Callous Daoboys possess and is a solid embodiment of how chaotic they truly are. The song conveniently called Title Track comes after and is, as a shock to me, quite on the long side. It starts out very soft with a rainy background and immediately kicks in. Soft gang vocals and a more classic guitar riff throughout the song separate Title Track from the other songs and gives a unique break as we near the halfway point of this release.
Field Sobriety Practice, also a longer song, greets us with Carson singing against a more mellow and pretty guitar bit than we might be used to with this band. Don’t get used to that though as we revert to the fun sound, we know about a minute in. I honestly think this chorus might be my favorite chorus The Callous Daoboys have ever done, but maybe that’s because I’m a sucker for some good singing and fun instrumentals. Much to my surprise, we are met with more low screams throughout this song which really adds to it for me, if even possible. The song ends with a beautiful guitar solo and more of Carson’s singing to tie it all together. The most recent single. The Elephant Man In the Room, chaotically follows and brings us exactly that; chaos. Also, some fun piano that I can’t forget to mention. This is one of the angrier songs on the album, which is a vibe I love coming from The Callous Daoboys, but it does not fall short on eclectic features and nontraditional instrumentals.
Going into What Is Delicious? Who Swarms? which was originally my favorite now has me thinking. I truthfully thought this song could not be topped for me, and they have already done it with yet another song still to follow to end the record. This chorus immediately had me in love the first time I heard this song, especially with the lows that follow it. About halfway through we get some saxophone as well as background harmonizing. To finish the record, we have Star Baby which is arguably the song I heard most about from the band before release. Star Baby starts with a bouncy bass line before the rest of the instruments come in. I’m not exactly sure what I expected from this song, but I’m not at all disappointed with what we have been given.
As a whole, I think this album absolutely pushes it for me for album of the year, and that is saying something as this is going up against Disparity by Oceans Ate Alaska for me. The Callous Daoboys are doing music like no one else in this scene. This is one band where I can’t think of a comparison for them, they are simply doing their own thing. Seeing them on tour with Greyhaven and Limbs, I fell in love with their eccentric sound, and I am so excited to see where they go from here. If you don’t listen to the entire album, at least give a few songs a shot. You can’t go wrong with any of them.