Post-hardcore band Dance Gavin Dance may have been in the rock scene for nearly 20 years, but they are just getting started on a new chapter with their searing new record, Pantheon, out September 12 via Rise Records, one that sees the outfit harkening back to their progressive roots, as they do on the album’s emotional opener “Animal Surgery,” a track that is reminiscent of 2008’s “Burning Down The Nicotine Armoire.”
“When we did the singer change with (lead clean vocalist Andrew) Wells we had already compiled a good amount of songs prior. We went back and listened to them and Will said that we [should] go back and write more songs to cater to Andrew, drummer Matthew Mingus says, referring to guitarist Will Swan. “In that process, we all talked about the direction of the band and there was an element that was lost along the way. We wanted to try and recreate some of our earlier records that had some more progressive sounding stuff while still maintaining a newer, fresh sound. We also wanted to make it heavier, so when we went in to write the new batch of songs, we had that in mind.”
Swan adds that he feels like the band has been “leaning in a direction for a few albums that is fun but artistically confining,” noting, “We were leaning into a poppier sound and building off of that, which all of us like to explore. We like to incorporate anything and everything in the DGD universe. It’s fun to get that classification of uncategorized. The last few records, although I’m very proud of them, lack a bit of the sense of fun and exploration. On this record, we tapped back into that. This record is all over the place in the best kind of way and it represents all the emotions and experiences we’ve had for the last few years.”
Emotionally raw, messy, and brutal, the band addresses anxiety, existential dread, and navigating an undercurrent of frustration and anger amid a changing political climate across 13 tracks, most notably on the intense “Yikes” and the heavy hitting “All The Way Down.” Swan points out that the band traverses “dark feelings” and their feelings on the “chaos” of the world and a “reaction to what is being seen and felt,” with the album acting as an exploration of “new territory that we haven’t covered in a long time.”
However, this is balanced out with absurdism and lightness as references to Johnny Cochran and Sarah McLaughlin on “A Shoulder to Cry On” illustrate a need to find relief amongst it all. Swan adds that both lyrically and musically, the band is “diving into the angst that gets to be re-processed through writing.”
For Mingus, this album is more than just another record— it is a redefinition of a band that has had to recalibrate in the face of change and grief and a testament to perseverance. Their first album release since the tragic passing of the band’s longtime bassist Tim Feerick, the band has been through numerous lineup changes: the group has formerly included lead vocalists Jonny Craig, Kurt Travis, and Tillian Pearson in its lineup. Now, nearly a year after the band decided to launch Wells as their new lead clean vocalist, Pantheon serves as both sonic reinvention and a ringing endorsement of the singer’s abilities to “do his own thing.”
“Midnight at McGuffy’s” perfectly blends the sounds that fans have come to expect from the band while truly spotlighting Wells. “With respect to all of our other singers, who did awesome jobs, everyone has had their own unique thing and brought different elements to the band,” says Mingus. “Andrew is great, he’s an all-around strong vocalist with many different styles. That’s one thing we really emphasized with him, like ‘Hey, look, don’t try to be any of our past singers. Just be yourself and write how you write.’ He comes from Idola and has experience as a vocalist and he definitely showed it on the new album. [With live shows] he brings a whole other aspect with crowd interaction and just does a phenomenal job.”
It is also a chance to celebrate 20 years as a band in the rock scene, something that Mingus jokingly says makes him feel “old.”
“It’s nice for sure, especially in January when we were doing the Emo’s Not Dead Cruise and it’s like we’re these old guys now. For me, there’s a lot of gratitude involved that I can still get to do this 20 years later and the level that the band’s at now is beyond anything I ever thought that we’d be capable of achieving. It’s almost like this limitless expansion. We keep growing and growing. All the hard work we put in finally paid off because it did not happen overnight for us. We had to stay consistent and keep working hard. It feels surreal. We’ve seen a lot of bands come and go over the years and just the fact that, especially with all the shit that we’ve been through with lineup changes and members passing away, we’ve created this brotherhood through it, as far as how close the band is.”
Swan adds that he has seen “a ton of personal growth” since joining the band. “I look back at when we started as a band and I feel like I’m almost a different person. So much has changed for us. I’ve had a few kids now—I just had my second child three weeks ago— and looking at them, I hope that they find something that they’re passionate about, that they can put their lives into. I’m really grateful for the band and the fans and everything that’s helped us to continue on. I feel like I’m in a position now to really feel the connection and appreciate the impact that we have on people’s lives.”
Both Mingus and Swan hope that listeners are able to find solace and understanding in an anxiety-inducing political climate, using music as a point of connection to understand how to navigate chaos. “We’re all in it together and I think that’s something to remember,” says Mingus.
Swan elaborates on this point by discussing what listening to heavier music has given him. “What got me into music was having tough times in life and being able to relate to feelings that I was hearing in heavier music that were representing things I couldn’t put into words. With this record, it feels like there’s a cliff that we’re jumping off of collectively that we don’t know what’s going to happen afterwards. There’s an anxiety to that which we decided to be really honest about. I hope that other people who are worried about that kind of thing feel those chaotic feelings and are able to relate to that and find some comfort and relatability that others are feeling the same thing.”
Pantheon is out now, and you can order it from Rise Records. Follow Dance Gavin Dance on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for future updates.
