The Dodos

 

Naming your band after an extinct bird is tempting fate, but San Francisco's Dodos went down a storm at this year's SXSW festival. Descriptions of their music usually include the words "folk", "pop" and "psychedelic", but that's only half the picture. Singer-guitarist Meric Long and singing drummer Logan Kroeber certainly have golden harmonies to spare, but the music's drive comes from Kroeber's hyperactive drumming. He bashes away at his kit like a man possessed; the effect is rather like hearing early Tyrannosaurus Rex perform beneath a flyover, or Simon and Garfunkel singing while someone fixes the plumbing.

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Positioned at the front of the stage, Kroeber's kit is odd: no bass drum or hi-hat; a cymbal that sounds like a biscuit tin lid; various mismatching, multicoloured old tom-toms that look as though they have been liberated from a skip. The xylophone player sometimes adds even more percussion by attacking a trash can.

It should sound all wrong, but there is passion and even violence in these otherwise wryly funny songs about love and betrayal, many from their acclaimed Visiter album. They may look like folky college drips - though Kroeber has a fiendish moustache - but are not above an occasional shouted "motherfucker".

Some songs are more beautiful; others erupt in eerie, almost supernatural hollering. Their banter is perhaps not as creative as their music - "Is York-shyre something to do with York?" drawls Long. But while the Dodos will not be to everyone's taste, folk, psychedelia, pop or dustbins have not sounded anything like this before.

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