reveiwed by Scott Fisher

Okay, let’s set the wayback machine to the late 80’s. Hair metal was big (pun intended). The British wave had come and was answered by the L.A. metal bands. Afterwards, the late 80’s and early 90’s became everyone else’s moment in the sun. You’d see bands from all over, and some of the coolest came from countries like Sweden and Denmark. One of those bands from Denmark was Disneyland After Dark. But after a threatened lawsuit from America’s favorite vacation spot, they’ve since used the moniker D-A-D. Now, though I normally restrict myself to reviewing CDs from local Texas bands, I think that, considering they’ve never made it big here in the States, and their past hits such as “Rim Of Hell,” and “Sleeping My Day Away” are still cool songs, these guys deserve an exception to that rule. And, with any luck, maybe you’ll see them touring the States in the near future. Who knows? [Hint, hint, wink, wink – Editor]

This promotional CD Rusty handed me had puzzled me at first. Kudos to the guy that creatively changed the spelling of the album’s title to appear Latin – DIC-NII-LAN-DAFT-ERD-ARK. Get it?     Well, I think it’s cool…   And, maybe they’ll get lucky and ol’ Walt and his over-priced theme park won’t notice…

This CD starts off appropriately enough with a rockin’ little groove called “A New Age Moving In” that is sure to get your blood pumping and your foot a-stompin’. This is a great anthem song; well-written, well-played, and well-sung. I suddenly became anxious to hear the rest of this project.

I continued through the collection of songs, hearing other straight out rockers, to several you could classify as pop-metal, cowpunk, or probably best as melodic rock. Perfect examples of this are the fun “Fast On Wheels,” “Breaking Them Heart By Heart,” and the first single from this album, “I Want What She’s Got.” There’s even a couple close-dancing songs thrown in…

Top tracks for this project are “Last Time In Neverland” and “Drag Me To The Curb.” Both are straight-ahead rockers with great lyrics, arguably the best feature about this band. The ironic and melancholic twists they  take with their lyrical writing will keep a listener actually paying attention and possibly even grinning at the humor. No, really. Even the final song on the CD, a tender little “I told you so” love ballad, “Your Lips Are Sealed,” has just enough funny melancholy to keep the song serious, but still promote a chuckle or two. Have I mentioned irony yet?

I absolutely love the sound of this band for everything from the highly artistic lyrical writing, the singer’s tone and inflection, right down to the great vintage guitar tones reminiscent of Collective Soul meets Norman Greenbaum. Yeah, I linked his name to a Youtube video cuz I’m sure you’re wondering who the hell that is.

Northern Europe sticks in my mind as being somewhat of a mecca for some of the darkest, blackest metal you will ever wanna hear. D-A-D isn’t one of those bands. They’re quite a bit more commercial than that in their sound, though far from one of those cheesy national acts from back in the day trying to make an even cheesier comeback. And besides, I can’t see D-A-D with their own reality show or bus of love, Brett. They’ve actually been together and recording albums steadily since ’84. And one of the biggest things I love about D-A-D, and certain other 80s bands still out there doing what they do, is their loyalty to their sound. D-A-D hasn’t changed their formula since they started. Though their recent album, DIC-NII-LAN-DAFT-ERD-ARK, was released in late 2011 and still has the same heart and overall sound known by their fans from when they started in ‘84, it’s still very fresh.