IN REVIEW: Dorothy - "28 Days in the Valley"

After a lengthy lead-up to debut album ROCKISDEAD, it didn't take Dorothy Martin very long to follow it up; 28 Days in the Valley arrives just 21 months later. There's been a quick turnaround in style, too, as the metallic modern blues of the debut has been replaced with a more kaleidoscopic psych vibe akin to a Stonesy Jefferson Airplane or classic Heart with a little less muscle and a little more soul. This is likely thanks to Linda Perry's involvement, as the veteran producer also co-wrote these songs; the result is a cleaner, more colourful set of tunes that aims to draw more attention to Martin's performance as opposed to burying her under a wall of noise.

At first, 28 Days in the Valley delivers on all promises with pleasant results; Flawless, with its massive and melodic chorus and impassioned vocals, establishes itself as the best song this band has released to date, at least to my ears. Who Do You Love really drives home the Jefferson Airplane energy and Pretty When You're High is another big and tuneful mid-tempo rocker that would have most likely taken lead single duties if not for Flawless.

By the time we get to Mountain, yet another mid-tempo track (this time with a gospel feel), it starts to become clear that the high energy racket of ROCKISDEAD is, pun intended, dead. Lazy tempos and flourishes of psychedelia and soul are the order of the day, with a handful of faster passages inserted to pick things up every once in a while. Sometimes, such as on Freedom, the right balance is achieved; overall, though, 28 Days in the Valley becomes a bit of a chore to sit through, especially as the album trudges through its mid-section. Aside from a temporary uptick in tempo here and there, listeners are subjected to long stretches that kind of blur songs together into a haze.

The album gets so bogged down in places that perfectly serviceable songs (like Black Tar & Nicotine and Ain't Our Time To Die) become just more ballads in the pile, their impacts dulled in the context of a ballad-heavy album as we wait for any injection of energy to save us from the monotony. The album at least closes on a more energetic note, with the one-two punch of We Are STAARS and We Need Love closing things out on a psyched-out tent revival tip and a hot desert acid trip respectively. It's too little too late, but it's at least somewhat admirable that the attempt to go out on a high note was made.

As a reinvention of Dorothy's core sound, 28 Days in the Valley ticks all the boxes, but fans who wanted a continuation of the hard blues of ROCKISDEAD are likely to feel a combination of bewilderment, disappointment and drowsiness upon their initial listen to this album. There are some great songs here and, taken separately from the almost hour-long whole, a few of them are fantastic singles waiting to happen. As an album-length experience, though, it's a few songs too deep and would have benefited from a shorter run-time and/or some sequence tinkering to more evenly distribute the album's energy.

March 16, 2018 • Roc Nation
Highlights Flawless • Pretty When You're High • Freedom

Year in Rock 2025

Alright, I've got some explaining to do. By now anyone who's visited this blog is well aware of how infrequently I've used this space in recent years; aside from the occasional fertile year of content, I really haven't posted all that often over the last five years or so. There are many reasons for this, which have already been outlined in previous apology posts; but, essentially, it boils down to my own laziness and the cold reality that blogs are, like Refused (again), fucking dead. So, I wouldn't hold my breath for a triumphant return to reviews, or even semi-regular posts, but: a) I feel like Year in Rock posts have always belonged here and, even though I've experimented with different methods of presentation recently and been satisfied, the "blink and you missed it" unveiling via Facebook stories this year was perhaps ultimately a disservice to the records I lauded. After all, cramming the list into short videos isn't too far off from ju...

Year in Rock 2011 Nominee: Sam Roberts Band

SAM ROBERTS BAND I Feel You From: Collider Released: May 10 Having already endured the breakout success ( Brother Down was Canada's it rock song of 2002), the tentative dabbling in the U.S. market, as is the rite of passage for all moderately successful Canuck artists (2003's debut We Were Born in a Flame was the best time to try; one of the best albums of the year, it made a small dent in the American mindset upon its release there a year later), the difficult, druggy third album (the aptly named 2005 disc Chemical City ), and the subdued creative step backward (2008's Love at the End of the World , aside from hit single Them Kids , was really kinda bland), it seems according to script that Sam Roberts would start settling in on his fourth album (and first with the band credited as equal contributors), Collider (you know, I think it was a bad idea to give me brackets). Well, as far as settling in goes, Roberts does and doesn't on Collider . W...

IN REVIEW: Rancid - "Trouble Maker"

As far as punk rock goes, it's hard to name a hotter hot streak than the trio of records Rancid cranked out between 1995 and 2000; the star making ...And Out Come the Wolves , the far-reaching Life Won't Wait and their balls-to-the-wall second self-titled album solidly positioned Rancid as leaders of the second generation of punk. It also preceded a period of slow progression, as Rancid would take eleven years to release their next three records. By the time ...Honor Is All We Know came in 2014, many fans (myself included) had to wonder whether or not this was the end of the road. Such concerns are handily dealt with on the closing track of the standard edition of their ninth record, the positively punishing This Is Not the End . Well, okay then, that's sorted. Now, what of this new record? What do we make of the use of their original logo on the cover, a logo that hasn't graced a Rancid record in 25 years? Is this a throwback to the band's heyday, a new begin...

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