Ecce Hobo

Review - Ashish Patel

When I first heard Where The Devil Dances I thought I had chosen to review a cd that mixed rock, jazz, and a bit of country with crazy religious lyrics, and how could you blame me with a begging track like "Evil Ways," in which the chorus is "Evil ways makes man a slave" and at one point just start chanting "I have sinned against you my Lord." But then once you start listening to the album, not only do you realize that they're not really that religious at all, they're actually making a mockery of religion. And though the entire album doesn't necessarily focus on the topic of religion, the tracks that did were my favorite (pretty much because I find them the most amusing).

Musically, this band varies quite a bit from song to song. Some songs, like "Evil Ways," have a very indie pop meets eighties rock meets hymns you would sing in church kind of feeling, and then you get some songs like "Satan's Dug" that have a very jazzy beat to them (I'm a sucker for some good jazz flute), and then you have songs like "Calling My Own Name," which has a rather pleasant and calm acoustic guitar-driven melody. Overall they don't fail to please musically, except for the more indie pop sounding songs that seem to emulate the general formula for making pop songs, which can get rather annoying, though such songs are not without traces of the good instrumentation one can find throughout the rest of the album. My biggest problem with this album, which really isn't that much of a problem really, are the vocals that are delivered on some of the songs. In many of the songs with a more poppy feeling, his voice doesn't really compliment the music too well. When the female backup vocalist kicks in it helps, but it still simply doesn't sit right. Songs like "Satan's Dug" and "The Ballad of Betty & Bob," however, fit the singer's voice very well, and make them that much more pleasant to listen to.

Something else one simply can't ignore about this album are the lyrics. Most of their songs deal with the various problems with our society and the way we think, throwing quite a lot of philosophy into the mix and offering fairly good food for thought most of the time. As previously mentioned, religiously-themed lyrics were at times my favorite parts of this album, such as the lyric "If you lie or cheat or steal, download porn or cop a feel, or when you feel a little smug, you're suckling on Satan's Dug" where, for those who don't know, dug means teat (I had to look it up myself). "The Ballad of Betty & Bob" was by far my favorite track on the album, however, with the lyrics describing Betty and Bob's life of misfortune which they eventually blame on God, and thereafter attempt to kill him for.

Overall this album has a quite varied sound, and offers many interesting (and sometimes fairly amusing) songs. They occasionally get a bit pretentious with their lyrics, but it would be difficult not to when writing about the topics their songs are cover.
- OpeningBands.Com

"This debut from local quartet Ecce Hobo is a tribute, both lyrically and musically, to the everyman and his futile search for truth. Vexing tales from sinners and moralists alike burst forth from a backdrop of wild instrumentation, from slinky jazz to countrified folk, in a collection of upbeat, yet disquieting songs. Good and evil duke it out in melodic fashion, and though a victor is never officially crowned, the inclusion of philosophy in a rock record is rare and refreshing."

by Katie Sauro, Seattle Sound Magazine - Seattle Sound Magazine