It’s been a while since Portland’s Dandy Warhols graced us with new material: 2012, in fact (the somber and uneven This Machine). In a world now capable of passing off an odds/sods compilation as a “surprise album” (hello, Kendrick Lamar), it’s become possible to forget even as memorably debauched a band as the Dandys when the group takes a couple of cycles off. Which is what makes Distortland such a damned welcome sound for sore ears; Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s voice is a bit huskier and a little more lived-in, his songs maybe a little more dashed off than the solid gold nuggets of the band’s pop past. Shaggy garage-stomping lead track “Search Party” makes perfectly clear that these guys give exactly zero fucks for whatever preconceived notions of their work you may be carting around. Same goes for cockeyed character sketch “Pope Reverend Jim,” faux-swinging-’60s jam “All The Girls In London” and abbreviated twilight walk “Grow Up Song.” And it’s the better for it. The Dandys haven’t sounded this simultaneously energized and devil-may-care since the Duran Duran-polished synthpop of 2003’s Welcome To The Monkey House. It’s a different era and a brand new day for my favorite hometown foursome—on an indie label with little to lose—but I’ll be damned if they’re not just as funny, capable of just as much mayhem, as they were back in their “hey, just send us the bar tab” heyday. Dig.
—Corey duBrowa
