While Is 4 Lovers has the trappings of a new Death From Above 1979 to lead us into the 2020s, it spends most of its time recalling the band’s early intensity
The first thing I noticed about Death From Above 1979’s fourth album Is 4 Lovers was its cover. For the first time since their inception (minus the obscure Romantic Rights EP), the album cover lacked the band’s logo: a stylized cartoon of its two members with elephant trunks. Allegedly, they settled on this very eye-catching and unusual brand because they “wanted our band to be like an elephant in your living-room.” Is 4 Lovers is instead adorned with an old photo of member Sebastian Grangier’s great aunt and uncle, as the album is meant to be about “real love.”
This sounds like a change of pace for a band known for a hard rock intensity that borders on metal, but Is 4 Lovers is meant to defy expectations about the duo. As Grangier stated: “We’ve been doing this for long enough now that there’s nothing that should be off limits for us.”
Ironically, the first half of Is 4 Lovers sounds exactly like what you’d expect from the band. In fact, it’s more like their 2004 debut You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine than the two albums they released in the 2010s. On the single “One + One,” Grangier’s drums repeat a bass, snare, and hi-hat patter that will remind you why the band was labeled “dance-punk” back in the day, while bassist (yes, that is a bass and not a guitar) Jesse F. Keeler lays down some of his heaviest riffs in years. It is very much a love song if you listen to Grangier’s lyrics. Who says love songs had to be soft and corny?
Similarly raw, quick-paced tracks comprise the first 15 minutes of Is For Lovers, from the charging opener “Modern Guy” to the chaotic and heavily distorted “Totally Wiped Out.” The track “N.Y.C Power Elite” is split into two parts, with the punching snare drums of the first ratcheting things up and the lingering bass notes of the second providing a cool down. Throughout, their lyrics skewer the titular nouveau yuppies with lines like “they go upstate on the weekends, helicopter brunches” and “I’ll send a black car to you downtown maybe.” If this first half of Is 4 Lovers were released as an EP, it would rival their debut Heads Up for ferocity.
The album’s second half is where you’ll find the tracks that actually defy expectations about the band, with new styles that lack the raw vigor of their predecessors. The only exception is “Mean Streets,” where a somber intro and outro hide 22 seconds of pure thrash rock. Otherwise, you have tracks like “Glass Homes,” which is the most electronic song the band have ever released, thanks to what sounds like a chiptune synthesizer. Continuing the superlatives, “Love Letters” is their mildest song to date and its low piano notes sound more like Spoon than Death From Above 1979. While Keeler’s bass notes are barely noticeable on “Glass Homes,” they’re completely absent on “Love Letters,” which I think is a first for the band. The closing track “No War” has the grungy feel of their last album Outrage! Is Now, but with a more dirge-like delivery before descending into synthesizer static.
While Is 4 Lovers has the trappings of a new Death From Above 1979 to lead us into the 2020s, it spends most of its time recalling the band’s early intensity (which I welcome). Even the logo-less album art is a bit of a red herring, since the physical versions of Is 4 Lovers have the standard logo on them. The new directions on the album’s second half are certainly intriguing and show the duo haven’t stagnated almost two decades after their start. That said, the harder rockin’ first half is probably why you listened and/or have been following them this whole time.
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