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Sound Advice: Old Story, Fresh Road by The Diableros
Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice.
The Diableros have always had the unusual ability to both show and grow; their jumpy beats and awkward vocals are way too in-your-face before you have the chance to actually hear what’s going on, let alone absorb it, but eventually the structures unravel. The band’s new EP on Outside Records, Old Story, Fresh Road, sticks close to this mandate, but a fresh lineup and streamlined recording process have also added a new focus and a clear direction.
Sometimes it can be a relief when a band releases an EP as opposed to a full length, and Old Story, Fresh Road pleads a great case for that refinement. Whether the short release was due to budgetary reasons (the band went pro and recorded this one with Laurence Currie) or was a deliberate choice based on the material they had ready to work with, the Diableros’ self-editing ensures the punch they pack doesn’t wimp out before the end. The intention of authentically portraying their live energy gets a boost from the long-formed rhythmic chemistry of ex-Postage Stamps bassist Keith Hamilton and drummer Mike Duffield, and another new member, former Stamps singer-songwriter Jordan Walsh, adds a thick, moody wall of organ that continues to make the Diableros stand out from the typically cute local indie-rock sound. But Pete Carmichael remains the main proprietor of the band’s charming complexity; his earnest vocals are at once uneasy and cathartic, the duality perfectly covered from the Bloc Party–sounding, wormy-versed/crunchy-chorused opener, “Wandering Dry,” to the significantly cheekier soul pomp of closer “Old Story, Fresh Road.” In between the expected and the odd is “When the Water Rises,” a gem of a track that sits Carmichael’s trademark warble atop a momentous surf-rock drum roll, rattling, melodic bass, and the standout simplicity of a single, menacing, guitar slide that doesn’t actually change but somehow shape-shifts into a huge ringing hook in time for the chorus.
The best moments on Old Story, Fresh Road are precursors to, at best, The Diableros transcending a lot of the perceived pop/indie-rock conventions that could limit them, or, at worst, the creation of another middle-of-the-road rock outfit whose charm somehow tricks people into thinking it’s different. It seems to have worked okay for Kings of Leon.