Hypothetically Speaking
Hypothetically speaking, it's hard to know what the world would make of Dead Man's Bones if one-half of the band didn't happen to be incredibly famous Hollywood dreamboat Ryan Gosling. Minus the stigma of being made by a man with such a well-known jaw-line, would this album be acclaimed for only its musical contents, embraced as a wild, weird, wacky concept-record from the lunatic artistic fringe? Or would it, in such, be mired in obscurity, no legions of fans in waiting to witness a band whose members were conspicuously not-famous?
It's, of course, a waste of time to weigh up this hypothetical question; but, then again, no one ever said what-if?s were constructive. The reality is: Dead Man's Bones is the project of Gosling and pal Zach Shields. They met when they were dating the also-famous McAdams sisters in Toronto. Whatever they would've done, musically, there was guaranteed to be an audience there to hear it.
The Terror of the Unexpected
The big surprise is that what they've done is utterly unexpected. Dead Man's Bones' debut plays, in many ways, as the antithesis of every narcissistic vanity project ever conceived. It's strange, spooky, raw, weirdly-produced (parts jump in and out of the mix with a charming irregularity), almost entirely free of guitars, unafraid of random-sounding arrangements, uniquely its own thing, and, when it comes down to it, an actual work of art.
Given Gosling's chiseled jaw, it's amazing enough that Dead Man's Bones have made a record that sounds like this. What's truly incredible, utterly phantasmagorical even, is the fact that it's really good.
Creating a Monster
Dead Man's Bones are a Frankensteinian assembly of random, assorted parts into a singular entity. Gosling and Shields are anything but dudes riffing on Radiohead records; instead, they draw life from monster movies, Halloween costumery, Tom Waits' junkyard cabaret, frighteningly-wholesome '50s doo-wop, the spoken-word-aided girl-group melodramas of the Shangri-las, and, most notably, the work of the Langley Schools Music Project.
In the late-'70s, a daydreaming Canadian school-teacher recorded a gaggle of kids in a gym knocking out versions of songs by The Beatles, Beach Boys, and David Bowie. 25 years later, the recordings were unearthed, and went on to inspire countless hipsters (including director Spike Jonze and Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer Karen O on the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack). For Gosling and Shields, the Langley LP, Innocence & Despair, served as a (skeleton?) key to unlocking all they wanted Dead Man's Bones to be.
The Bones Brigade
There's a definite spookiness to listening to the Langley Schools Music Project, hearing the eerie voices of long-grown-up kids echoing eerily around a school gym like ghosts of spring-dances past. In hoping to make an album steeped in the lore of old-horror-movies and low-rent haunted houses, Gosling and Shields struck up a working relationship with the Silverlake Conservatory of Music Children's Choir, hoping to summon some of that Langley eeriness.
Occasionally, this plays as twee homage (as in "Young & Tragic"), but other times, like in the rambunctious "My Body's a Zombie for You" or the electric, Gosling-lead "Lose Your Soul," the Choir help Dead Man's Bones bring to life their ungodly musical monster.
The presence of the kids, and the amateurish wonkiness of some of Gosling and Shields' keyboard lines, gives Dead Man's Bones just the write touch of humor. Played straight, this musical summoning of the macabre would've come across as embarrassingly goth, but there's a genuine sense of humor here; an excited love of creation that makes these Dead Man's Bones come alive.
Record Label: Anti-
Release Date: October 6, 2009
