Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

Dodgy

Stand Upright In A Cool Place

Label: Strike Back Release Date: 20/02/2012

82190
DanLucas86 by Dan Lucas February 20th, 2012

You remember 24, right? You know that season it did where Jack Bauer had to fight the terrorists? The ones who had a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles, and if Jack couldn’t find the Big Bad at the centre of a series of nefarious villains in Russian Doll form then “tens of thousands of people WILL DIE”? No, not that one; that was the one with the super virus. And no it wasn’t the vaguely Middle Eastern fundamentalist, it was the corporate bigwig. I think there were political machinations going on.

Much like the writers on the once-brilliant (yes stupid, but brilliant) 24, those of us writing about the current wave of Britpop revitalisation are quickly running low on threads to follow:

“Pulp! Blur! They were brilliant!”

“It’s a sad sign of our childhood heroes descending into money grubbing corporate shills!”

“Cast! Elastica! HA HA HA HA HA!”

Those of you who remember the Nineties will, most likely, file the news of Dodgy’s return Stand Upright in a Cool Place under the latter subheading, and deservedly so. Recalling all their hits – ‘Staying Out For The Summer’, ‘Good Enough’... all the hits – is to recall the worst of the Britpop era; the surging tide of MOR sewage that the ill-gotten-if-understandable success of Oasis and The Stone Roses formed a sluice for into the undeserving ears of the radio-listening populace circa 1998.

But then the thing with Stand Upright in a Cool Place is that it can’t be quite so readily pigeonholed as the likes of Cast’s Troubled Times (more on that elsewhere though). Whether it’s the sad circumstances of the band’s reunion – they were brought back together at a friend’s funeral four years ago – or simply the individual members’ aging, the breezy anachronistic sound of a band saying 'Hey, remember the Beatles?' is fortunately nowhere to be seen. It’s a vague cliché to talk about a band having a more 'mature' sound, but here there is at least a sense of Dodgy being aware of the contemporary musical climate rather than taking the easy route of falling back on cloying nostalgia.

Admittedly this does sometimes feel pretty forced. The band are clearly looking to capitalise on the success of a wave of Pitchfork-approved alternative pop records; opener ‘Tripped and Fell’ is the sound of a band taking its first (very) tentative steps into giving psych-folk the John Hurt role whilst at the chorus their Britpop predilections take on the role of the Alien in Ridley Scott’s film . Meanwhile part of me wants to scream that you JUST CAN’T close an album with a song called ‘Happy Ending’, without really knowing why not. In between, it’s like an album of Ocean Colour Scene covering Grizzly Bear songs.

It feels like a bit of a dick move to do so, but let’s be brutally honest here: Dodgy were also-rans of their era, their songs more suited to the Northampton Roadmenders of this world than the Knebworths or Spike Islands. But they were unquestionably more likeable than a lot of their contemporaries, and when you place Stand Upright in a Cool Place next to Beady Eye or Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – let’s face it, the sounds of some old men in denim trying to recapture Oasis’s glory years above a pub somewhere in Middle England – they prove just a touch more ambitious too. Nonetheless, they do inevitably sound like a band thrown out of their epoch into a world that’s moved on, The Shawshank Redemption’s aged ex-con Brooks desperately trying to cope in a world that’s passed him. “It’s a fucking shame/never be the same/did it have to be this way?” they ask halfway through record. I’m sorry, but yeah, it did.

  • 4
    Dan Lucas's Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing


  • Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alternative must sees



Left-arrow

Cast

Troubled Times

Mobback
82191
82192

Burial

Kindred

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145
  • news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143

    news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141
  • news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139

    Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138
  • Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137

    Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
  • Festival Review


    Way Out East: DiS Does Sharpe Festival 2019

  • 106135
MORE


    news


    The Neptune Music Prize 2016 - Vote Now

  • 103918
  • Takeover


    The Winner Takes It All

  • 50972

    Takeover


    10 Things To Not Expect Your Record Producer To...

  • 93724
  • review


    The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium

  • 4317

    review


    Sonic Youth - Nurse

  • 6044
  • feature


    New Emo Goth Danger? My Chemical Romance confro...

  • 89578

    feature


    DiS meets Justice

  • 27270
  • news


    Our Independent music filled alternative to New...

  • 104374
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND