The "Dope, man!"s

You might remember The Dopamines from such releases as Expect The Worst, unarguably the best release of 2010. You probably also remember them from one of the best releases of 2008. It was their self-titled album. It's called "The Dopamines".
Anyway, on their first and since then last European tour they ran out of records to sell so they sold/gave away "Discography" CD-Rs. I bought one at one show and got one for free at another show. Weird, right?
This blog post is dedicated to that CD-R, which is basically everything except for Expect The Worst, the split with Dear Landlord and the split with Till Plains. But because it is so wicked, I will  get into their side of the Till Plains split as well.

"The Dopamines"
I'm blasting it right now and it's been way too long. PUNCH DRUNK = DOPAMINE. I still can sing along to every word and I still stumble my tongue over half of the lyrics. Amazing. I want to turn it up as loud as possible but I'm in my student/dorm room now and I don't wanna disturb my fellow housemates. Even though they'd probably have a revelation over how good this is. All irrelevancy aside, The Dopamines are trashing my stereo with their first album. Because it is so good. It's pop punk but it sounds so much fuller than most pop punk. It's not generic at all. Jon W is one of the more talented bass players in pop punk music and his bass sounds bad-ass.
Damn, I'm at track 5 already. Fun Tags, it's called, or "that song with the 'party plates'." I'D RATHER GET A DUI, THAN GIVE UP THIS LIFE. I'm actually totally clueless about most of their lyrics but there's no denying this remains a lyrical masterpiece. Sometimes incredibly simple and accurate, but sometimes mysterious, far-fetched and all-out incomprehensible. Whether it's about being drunk for the x-th time or about a deceased pet dog, these guys know how to pull off intelligent stuff. For example, the song title "Beer Telescope" obviously refers to "beer goggles", but it extraposes it to the Dopamines degree, and that's not smart or intelligent, but it's witty and clever for sure. That's an important part of writing songs.
The punchy, hardcore-punk influenced music creates to-the-point songs that are in fact better expositioned in live shows than on CD or LP or whatever. At such occasions it's also evident what amount of passion the Dopadudes put into their music. It's their thing and you can absolutely hear that. Of course, it's wild and loud and fast and punk, but it's also angry, heartfelt, passionate and fragile. YEAH LIFE SUCKS SOMETIMES, TRYING TO MAKE EVERY WORD RHYME. WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE IT STOP. Both the searing guitar sound as well as the half-retained/half-shouted vocals make this a perfect band for those who have always thought punk rock needed more alcohol and more desperation.
The album closes with Navigation Point, which on this CD-R and on the CD in electric, but on the vinyl there's an acoustic version of it, which is absolutely amazing.

"Soap And Lampshades"
I hope you like fast and short cause that's what you get on this. 5 songs of about a minute or maybe 2 and 1 eponymous magnum opus. Operate. Jon Has Anxiety. Fuck my life. Ryan Has Anxiety. And I drink myself to sleep. Worstest Case Scenario. So wake up. Structural Failure. That's when it hits. Soap And Lampshades. Probably one of their bestest songs. Washing my hands with the bestest of friends.
Songwriting-wise this is probably better than the self-titled, generally speaking. I don't know shit, of course.

"Songs About Fucking Up"
This is from a split with The Copyrights, with whom they've been compared to death. The comparison isn't even accurate, but hey. On this split they definitely seperate themselves. Try This Kids At Home is awesome and so is October 24th, a song that ended up on Expect The Worst. I can feel the frustration dripping off of these songs. Pretty much a teaser for Expect The Worst, the album on whoch they have perfected their sound.

"August Eyes"
This is a cover song of The Seedy Seeds, a Cincinatti pop band. At first I thought they had maybe included a new song on this Discography but it isn't. That means they've done a pretty damn good job. I reckon.

"The Dopamines/Till Plains"
Not on the CD-R but just so damn good. This includes the best Dopamines song EVER, and that is of course Car Trouble. That's about as much as I want to get into this release. Get it, get it now and listen to it numerous times. Plz.