You are Invited: The Dismemberment Plan Live in Seattle
The Dismemberment Plan Live @ The Neptune Theatre
Saturday, November 7, 2013
By R. Sterling
It’s the lot of the music fan to savor the bittersweet sensations that surround the demise of a band still showing signs of fulfilling its initial promise. Unlike the dry husks that grind out releases long after the joy has gone, then disappear in a puff of dust, these bands leave us with a sense of “if only.” DC rockers The Dismemberment Plan definitely fall into this category.
Reformed, and touring on the back of a new album (The Uncanney Valley (sic)), the music fan risks a different set of bittersweet sensation when the Plan plays the Neptune Theater on December 7, but past experience of their energetic live shows suggest that it’s a risk well worth taking.
For the two decades of its existence, The Plan has built up a catalog of songs that has somehow managed to steer a steady course between the unlikely sirens of prog rock bombast, and punk’s reductive three chord shuffle, whilst still landing on the occasional danceable beat.
At their best, The Dismember Plan are skittering blasts of Travis Morrison’s dense but always hyper articulate lyrics, careering towards grand, catchy chorus, simultaneously anchored and driven on by an airtight rhythm section (for non-drum machine flights of almost drum and bass intensity, check out Joe Easley’s drumming on the pre-split album Change.)
Sometimes this really is a life of possibilities, what do you want me to say? You should go along on December 9, after all, you are invited.