Des Ark - Loose Lips Sink Ships

In order to illustrate the intensely pissed melancholy of this record, I’d like to conduct a visual exercise. Okay, ready? Now then, close your eyes and imagine the worst day of your life to date. You wake up to a blaring alarm clock that is smugly informing you that you’re an hour late for work. Panic-stricken, you sprint through your morning routine, although unable to brew that good strong cup of coffee that you really need right now. You see, you spent most of last night getting hammered after your significant other left you for your best friend. You’re repeating and analyzing her justifications in your head while you drive frantically. And run a Stop sign. After spending twenty minutes being hassled by a cop, you finally get to work. And get fired for sleeping through a client meeting. After spending two humiliating hours packing up your office in a box, you drag yourself to your car, only to find that you forgot to get gas. As the tow truck pulls up to your apartment building, you’re surprised to find your furniture by the dumpster. Turns out you’ve also been evicted, since you forgot to deliver the rent check, still perched on your nightstand for some two weeks now. Exhausted, disillusioned, and depressed, you crawl into your stationary car and rest your aching head on the steering wheel and wonder why you didn’t see any of this coming. Now, imagine the soundtrack to your misery. Enter North Carolina duo, Des Ark. This record personifies cheap beer, cigarettes, and the dingy bar they call home quite concisely. The drums are as pounding and out of time as the flickering light bulb swinging overhead. The guitars are as distorted as the shadows it casts. And the vocals are just as heart broken as our protagonist. Singer Aimee Argote has a fantastic talent for unrestrained and cathartic one-liners. Take the album’s most likely single, "No More Fighting Cats, OK?" where she states “Every excuse that we make for men makes it that much harder to take pride in them.” Or album closer "For Bob Riecke," where Argote solicits us to, “Lose it fast, lose it fierce, pierce the belly of this beast with a cold dull pain.” Drummer Timothy Herzog backs her right up with rhythmic empathy. Argote’s vocals also have a great malleability to them: the breezier folk tunes book-ending the record present a softer side to her palate, while cuts like "Jesus Loves You" show off an impressive growl rivaling some of Karen O’s best work. The only down side to Loose Lips Sink Ships is the production, although that can hardly be blamed on the band. Some of the tracks are a little less put-together than others, namely "Queen of the Sketch Patrol," but that kind of thing is forgivable for a debut. Otherwise, the whole effort consistently makes you want to bury your head in a pillow and sob. [www.desark.org]