A trio of veterans of Chicago’s DIY scene, Dehd don’t sound like nervous newcomers on Water, their debut full-length. Jason Balla, Emily Kempf and Eric McGrady possess a distinctive sound that borrows as much from sunny surf pop as it does from The Velvet Underground’s art rock. Last year Dehd released ‘Dying For’, a single that had us besotted with its easy rhythm and infectious chorus (“cowboy music for the digital age” we called it), and Water makes good on the promise of that track, thirteen songs that bop and sway to ruminations on love in all its forms.
Dehd have a defining characteristic that’s hard to describe, something Balla captures best in an interview with Pond when he says, “It’s gotta have that wiggle.” From the first seconds of opener ‘Wild’ it’s clear that Dehd don’t intend to hold anything back. Balla screeches the title in your ear as though popping up at your bedside at 3AM, and before you’re know it you’re wrapped up in raucous surfy vibes and bundled away with the band’s energy.
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“Lucky to have people in my life with the power to break my heart,” Kempf sings at the start of ‘Lucky’, a song that works through the disintegration of the romantic relationship between Balla and Kempf. “When you have a breakup, you want to isolate yourself and cut yourself off from one another,” Balla says. But Dehd took a different approach, creating music together as a way of moving on. As Kempf says “we processed our breakup through the scope of the band.”
In the context of that story, much of the album takes on a new dimension. ‘Baby’ for example becomes a riff on the same theme, with its pretty direct chorus of “well I lost your love, my baby, yeah I got it back again.” It’s a testament not only to the break-up but also what came next, a relationship no longer romantic but equally meaningful.
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The art pop vibes come to the fore on ‘Wait’, a song that sounds like Nap Eyes if they had a few extra cups of coffee, while ‘Push the Crowd’ skips along to McGrady’s perky percussion and fun little knots of noodly guitar, a great illustration of Dehd’s signature blend of sweet and gritty. There’s a Dear Nora vibe on ‘Lake’, a patient pop song that hits little eddies of melody as Kempf sings “love is a great big lake, love is heavy and deep, I am not afraid.”
But perhaps Water‘s most cathartic moment is ‘On My Side,’ a track that confronts things with raw emotion, Balla singing the verses while Kempf wails the chorus with real intensity. It’s the one song where all the swaying pop and the “wiggle” is dialed back, leaving only the distilled essence of the album’s circumstances, pain and support in equal measure.
Time is on my side
I will be alright
Dehd make music that’s a strangely congruent combination of hazy surf and lovelorn cowboy gloom, with the added bubblegum snap of 60s pop and the stale beer smell of shadowy dive bars. The fact Kempf and Balla kept the band together to make this album is an achievement in itself, but to make one without an ounce of melodrama is pretty remarkable. Yes, Water was born in difficult circumstances, but listening to those melodies, to McGrady’s drums, you’d never guess it.
Water is out now on Fire Talk Records and you can get it from the Dehd Bandcamp page.
