The Dopamines - Vices - It's Alive!
  Release Date: June 19, 2012
8.5/10

Upon my first listen of The Dopamines third full length album, "Vices", my initial impression was that it was their most focused effort. Every song seemed to go well together, and support a theme. I went back and listened to their last output, "Expect The Worst", which was basically on repeat the entire last two years for me. I quickly realized that both albums we're equally sticking to a theme, it's just that the theme has went off in slightly a different direction for the band.

 I don't know these three guys, and I'm not going to pretend like I do just because I feel as if I can relate to plenty of their lyrics about fucking up, getting fucked up, and being disappointed. Still, it seems as if "Vices" is a bit more grown up than "Expect The Worst".

 The ten songs here, spanning twenty-one minutes, touch on relationships, suicide, drug dependency, prescription medication and feeling like your life is hitting a dead end. Sure, some of these things pop up on earlier Dopamines recordings, but the difference here is a theme of going for it and accepting the worst rather than just expecting it.

 Since the release of their first full length, the band has been met with open arms by drop-out, forty hour work week, twenty-something punks who are constantly baffled by their fuck-ups yet still making the same mistakes. It's a pretty good crowd, but this band can't stay in the same place. While the music is still similar, and the production hasn't changed much, there are less beer-pleasing fifty second jams on "Vices".

 Perhaps the best thing about a poppy punk band like the Dopamines is that they can kill it with a song without a chorus or a real hook to it, such as the opener on this record called "You're So Vein II" which changes direction three or four times before hitting a wall and leading into "Useless", a blazer about trying to figure out why you feel so fucked up - our first reference to prescription drugs/self medication.

 It may irk some die-hards that the band re-recorded "Heads Up Dusters" from their split with Dear Landlord as the third track, but it sure does sound better and is a killer track for those who haven't heard it. Since the release of that 7", this is a track that I played over and over again, and the first Dopamines track that lyrically showed a new direction from twenty-something to adult.

"You Are Ruining My Life" seems like a bit of a throwaway track, with a chorus. And even though the band can both write fantastic songs without or without one, this one doesn't really take off or go anywhere. Thankfully, it leads into "Don't Mosh The Organ", which also holds a chorus and seems like it will be a fantastic song to see live. The strange fade out/fade in I don't really understand, but it doesn't bother me.

I would say that "Paid In Full" is probably the best song on the album, both lyrically and musically. It seems to really be the strongest thematically when it comes to what the songs on this album are about. To me, it's a song about jumping head first into what you're going to do and really trying, even if you fuck up. Also, for once, it's not a song about hating people.

Both "Kitchen Cleaners" and "More Chords, Better Value" almost read like a songs from "Insomniac" era Green Day, with the driving bass line and straight forward guitar reminiscent of "Armatage Shanks" or "Westbound Sign". And these are good things. In fact, most of the back half of the record reads like the back half of the best Green Day records, though with obvious progression from what the Lookout! sound was.

 It may take two or three listens of the entire record for big fans of the band to really get behind "Vices", or to get past the hooks of the two obviously dominating tracks, but this is clearly going to be one of the best albums of 2012 in punk.

You can hear "You're So Vein Part II" and "Paid In Full" over at http://itsaliverecords.bandcamp.com/album/vices