“Melee” is an album that doesn’t strive to fend off anxiety. No, Dogleg are one step ahead of it. Instead of exhausting themselves of doing their best to downplay its exhaustion, the Michigan punk band let all its ugly emotions into their system, do its worst, then sweat it out, and for it, their music is a catharsis for anyone who has walked through a dark day.
It doesn’t hurt that Dogleg are fully capable of burdening themselves with the worry and distress. A bro might recommend working hard and playing harder, but only guitarist and lead vocalist Alex Stoitsiadi, bassist Chase Macinski, rhythm guitarist Parker Grissom, and drummer Jacob Hanlon properly put that into action in their punk-post-hardcore-emo-crossing sound that has been tingling goosebumps among their live revelers these last few years throughout midwest VFW halls and DIY punk fests.
The early spirits of Title Fight, PUP and Joyce Manor’s bottled up emotions come to mind throughout Melee, but so does the Get Up Kids’ “Ann Arbor” bleed right through Dogleg’s hearts in this instance, as the 10 songs that pack in a gut-punch throughout “Melee” come barreling in with reckless choruses big enough to go toe to toe with any depressive episode.
They’re channeled through the elements of polar intensities with “Kawasaki Backflip”, riffs going off the rails as a drunken house party goes on without on “Bueno”, spiraling out in “Headfirst” and “Hotlines” in nihilistic, self-pitying whoas with clocks moving in hyperspeed, or breaking bones and connections on “Wrist.”
Never once do Dogleg let eve a millisecond pass them by on Melee where they aren’t rapidly cycling the air around them either. While the words may paint a bleaker picture, the rising Michigan four-piece are fully plugged into the game of life and all its stages, slugging it out whole-heartedly. If it all bodies them, at least they went down punching every button hard.. and fast.
Dogleg’s Melee will be released March 13th on Triple Crown Records.
The Fat Angel Sings 