by David Wilikofsky
Disq’s debut album, Collector, was released in the earliest days of the pandemic; though well reviewed, its quirky power pop might have found a wider audience had it not made its way into the world during a cataclysm. Desperately Imagining Somewhere Quiet, the title of the group’s followup, serves as both a tongue and cheek reference to the band’s name and a hint to the way their sound has expanded since that debut; the band takes a maximalist, throw everything at the wall approach on their sophomore LP, packing more ideas into a forty minute album than some bands have in their entire career. There may be few moments of respite to be found, but you won’t find yourself searching for them.
At times, Desperately Imagining Somewhere Quiet plays more like a mixtape than an album, its songs ricocheting from genre to genre. The country twang of “If Only” gives way to the Big Star cribbing riffs of “Charly Chimp”; the weirdo art pop of “Cujo Kiddies” leads into the power pop of “This Time”. Echoes of midwest emo are bookended by wacky side effects. This freewheeling approach is perhaps a product of the album’s gestational process: four of the band’s five members contributed songs as well as vocals, their voices rotating as the album proceeds.
It sounds like a mess in print, but the band pull it off. It helps that each contributor clearly shares a love of melodic rock music and a sense of adventurousness, but perhaps more critically all these voices add a sense of unpredictability to the album; it becomes an animating force, a lurking possibility that things could veer in any direction at a moment’s notice. The production helps enforce this feeling, sprinkling in silly sound effects at unexpected moments: a laser zap, boinking springs, cackling monkeys. It’s music that refuses to be self-serious, more interested in reveling in the possibilities of sound.
This is all well and good, but it means nothing if the songwriting isn’t solid. Luckily, like all the best mixtapes, it’s wall to wall hits.