A debut of sweaty debauchery, ferocious passion, and biting roughness, Model/Actriz’s debut record is one that will leave you heaving on the ground. With its propulsive industrial dance-punk flavor and haughty expressiveness, it proceeds to indulge in the carnage of passions while also recognizing a calming reflection beyond it.
The situation of post-night club hours is drenched with passionate lovers quenched to ease their desires. With the intoxication and seduction laced in, the burst of love may come in various ways, from gentle appreciation to fiery elation. But there are situations where it tilts even deeper past that elation, wherein it eventually ends up being a rougher exchange of passion, one that includes carnage of desires bursting so heavily that the pain inflicted ends up being pleasure by the end of it.
In that description, there is something refreshing about Model/Actriz’s breakthrough as their debut album, ‘Dogsbody’, essentially checks the marks of leaning into something that’s been a bit unexplored in recent memory: industrial dance-punk with gay passions erupting aplomb. Cole Haden’s range of heaving, yelping, and somber vocals has pieces of Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart all over it and the tactile, whiplashing textures and grooves keep on charging this record past night hours. The pummeling opener ‘Donkey Show’ shrouds itself with these thick, revolting stomps coiling into this rush of noise as the protagonist submits to the violent passions of the relationship (“Oh, you don’t have to try to be gentle / Do it the way you feel right now). It continues forth into ‘Mosquito’ - and to an extent, ‘Slate’ - with its delight towards the sweaty and indulgent sex where the dance-punk rhythm goes into a ferocious swerve that allows Cole’s vocals to get more ragged (“With a body count higher than a mosquito”), and ‘Crossing Guard’ with the streamlined melodies that don’t take away from the haughty delivery towards wanting to be dominated in the roughest of ways (“Like Germanotta, Stefani / Pull the weight from under me”).
As the night continues to last further, the need to be dominated does get flipped around, however. ‘Amaranth’ with its elevated rounds of noise implies that the rough romance has turned into something painful and struggling (“I remember pacing blank ground / I remember thorns shredding my palms / And I remember scorching it all”). That flip eventually snaps off on ‘Pure Mode’ with its palpitating sets of percussion, breaking guitars, and filthy slithers of noise that put the vocals into a grit, where that anger finally sets in and is ready to tear things apart, both in the sexual and the romantic aspects (“Oh bitch I might / Enter into my pure mode”)
After that release of anger, it eventually leads to the aftermath from the moody angst of ‘Maria’ where the harrowing noise and the bulking melodic turns represent the protagonist's state in the fractured relationship (“Holds me with eyes that sing / I am not the man for him”), a condition that gets examined in the slower yet texturally crushing ‘Sleepless’ (“And sleepless / I’m waiting for / A turning that / I’ve seen before”). But at ‘Sun In’ and its acoustic shimmered guitar and slight slit of noise in the background, the protagonist finally feels at peace after what has happened. The pain may have turned into a scar that’s on his mind and body, but he’s still able to reminisce whatever good memories do remain in that relationship and has finally moved on with the sun shining brightly in his eyes (“The surface of the water crushed / Like silk in my hand, the sky is shaking out / The stains I left, and it’s / So bright with the sun in my eyes”)
It’s a consistently strong record where a lot of the textures, lyrical flair, and melodic passages align toward what it needs to do, but there are a few nitpicks to be had here. For one, as much as the grooves get pummeling and crumbling through and through, there are spots where it can get a little one-note that’s only differentiated with how Cole Haden’s array of vocal tones pierces through the immensely headbanging chorus lines. And for two, while the slower songs that are placed through some of the songs do end up working as a way to make the arc have its impact and the album structure get a bit of breathing room amidst the sweaty debauchery, it sonically and melodically doesn’t come off as strong, especially with ‘Divers’ with its scant soundscape and rather weak melodic lines over it. And so does ‘Sleepless’ with its fragile feedbacks even if the content of the song works well as a continuation of the reflection from that fragile romance.
The breakthrough of this band is nothing but a welcome, especially when ‘Dogsbody’ is the kind of gay sensuality that gets effectively evocative with its rough sensuality through the tactile grooves that work amazingly well, melodic passages that crush way too hard, as well as the visceral vocals and ravenous writing that never shies from indulging into violent passions that lead to it going astray. It’s a record that goes really hard and deep into that rough sense of lust, angst, and relationships that may end up hurting both parties, but would find the truth that will eventually settle into a quiet peace, even if the pain will linger slightly. There is a delight that will be found here, a delight that only a certain amount of people will find themselves thrust into when the night eventually looms over and that need for pelting libido takes hold.
Favorite Tracks: ‘Donkey Show’, ‘Mosquito’, ‘Crossing Guard’, ‘Amaranth’, ‘Pure Mode’, ‘Maria’, ‘Sun In’ Least Favorite Track: ‘Divers’