Dr. Dog: Fate [WE BUY GOLD RECORDS]

Why you'll love it

This reissue comes from We Buy Gold Records. "My Friend" turned up in the trailers for Judd Apatow's Funny People, and the album's sewn-on painting cover has its own story.

About the album

Dr. Dog have always sounded like a band raised on a stack of their parents' records, and on their fifth album they reached for a bigger palette. Fate keeps the ramshackle Philadelphia harmonies but dresses them up with strings, horns, flute, oboe and clarinet, all arranged by Brendan Cooney.

Toby Leaman and Scott McMicken share the singing, and the whole band wrote and recorded it. "The Breeze" opens with a warm sway, "The Old Days" and "Hang On" have a gospel lift, "The Rabbit, the Bat, and the Reindeer" is as odd and charming as it sounds, and "From" and "100 Years" stretch out. "My Friend" closes things on a big, open-hearted note. Greg Calbi mastered it, and Bill Moriarty mixed it.

The cover is a painting by Ken Ellis, a bartender at Chicago's Rainbo Club, inspired by a photo of Bonnie and Clyde. The band saw it at the club and bought it from him straight away, which remains the most decisive bit of art collecting we've ever heard of.

Also at Kops: more Dr. Dog on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On We Buy Gold Records (cat# WBGR012), a reissue of the 2008 album.