Review: Del Paxton – ‘All Day, Every Day, All Night’
Posted: by Findlay
Del Paxton are a band I’ve been HUGE on since their first release Worst. Summer. Ever. a good 4 years ago and their debut album has me feeling good (in a good way) and infuriated (also in a good way).
The Paxton boys are sneaky as hell because they make these really chill and nice emo indie songs but with a hidden technicality you get to appreciate the more you listen and become familiar with. They’re like the person you know that can do any sport, or just naturally cook well, or be just Good At Stuff with a real gracious ease, you marvel at it but you also go “god DAMN it”.
Their sound being a boil wash of both summer day coastal drives and those damp, rainy days where youre glad to be inside. Overlays of salt air and hot tarmac mixed with wet grass and the first drop of rain hitting your nose. A bit like the musical equivalent of a double exposure on a cheap disposable camera you took on holiday. Their songs are excitingly good and the new album All Day, Every Day, All Night is them at their apex. Its been uncoiling me recently, relaxing me like rolling out a rug in the garden. Its a two colour Rubix cube, which, simple sounding, only Dylan, Zack and Greg know how to solve it.
The hooks are fun and, if youre familiar with Del Paxton, are nimble and creative, the guitar noodles are dead sweet and used at the perfect moments, and drums and bass are so confident and solid, you can tell everyone is just having a fucking BLAST making these really rad lil emo jams. The song structures here though are my guy. There’s no convention. No solid Verse/Chorus/Verse sorta stuff. Its all played out in a metered and bricked stream-of-consciousness way so that the songs feel fluid and rolled-off-the-shoulder rather than solid blocks of song. The band know the ingredients they’re using and know what serves each song the best. Songs like “Wrong Distance” and “Sixes and Sevens” are perfect examples of this. You think you know whats coming next because the song set itself in then it just gently passes you a nice small new section or vocal part from nowhere and youre on another fork in the song. So good.
While theres no real abrasion/hardness here to speak of, Del Paxton have smoothed out a perfect pebble of amber with a tetris piece crystallised inside it. It forms the albums identity from within, but the outer shell is so nice and cool, you just want to hold it for five minutes more.
9/10
– Findlay
