Just around the corner from my parents’ house, the first house on the street has a stone outside in the garden that says ‘No 1’ on it. My girlfriend and I like to imagine it says “No-one” in a very dramatic, permanent, Ed Miliband style. The first track on the debut album by Doe, Some Things Last Longer Than You, is also called ‘No 1’. Brilliantly enough, it kicks in with a verse of the word “No-one” repeated over and over which is liable to leave anyone with a bit of a smirk on their face, even without my particularly daft circumstances. The first couple of tracks conjure up the same sort of weirdly nostalgic melancholy that you get from going back to the house you grew up as well. There’s a Breeders-style grungy indie rock feel, distinctly ’90s but something’s different.
That difference is brought into sharp focus with third track and lead single ‘Sincere’. It starts off gently enough, a sing-song melody for the first line and then a beefy second with a healthy dollop of distortion on the guitars. The counter melodies and intertwining vocals of the second verse really demonstrate the songwriting abilities that lift Doe above the rest of the grunge revival pack. Singing drummer Jake Popyura may not have the same personality to his voice as guitarist Nicola Leel and certainly doesn’t have the power she has, as demonstrated on the yelled outro, but his backing vocals add a lovely shade to the track.
He only takes the lead on ‘Before Her’, late on in the album, and unfortunately it’s a track that sticks out for the wrong reasons. Musically it’s almost a power ballad and the weaker vocals are only exaggerated by Leel’s backing vocals in the chorus, so much so that you wonder why the switch in lead vocalist. The fact that it’s followed by the best track on the record in ‘Corin’, which ploughs through with an opening hollered chorus from Leel before soaring riffs.
The second half of the track is where they really shine though, playing with the deceptively simple structure, getting faster and faster, Leel’s voice cracking and disintegrating into primal screams. As the song blasts along and then suddenly drops into half time for the last bar, you’re almost in room with them. You can hear the sweat dripping from every note, Leel spitting her frustration at the mic. It’s thrilling stuff, making closer ‘Something to Tell You’ a bit of a mid-tempo comedown. There’s more musical call-and-response playfulness from the guitars in the Weezer-ish middle eight that lifts it and a feedback solo to take us out that makes you wish the band had maybe messed about more in the previous 35 minutes. It’s a very promising debut, and when Some Things Last Longer Than You is good it’s great, making Doe ones to watch closely.
Some Things Last Longer Than You is out now on Specialist Subject.
