The melancholy of their sound is only enhanced when you learn about their background. Agora was originally recorded with the band as a three-piece, including bassist Gabe Ferman, who has since passed. Instead of neglecting these songs, they chose to immortalize the creative partnership with their debut album. Since the release, the Vancouver band has evolved into a new lineup of four members; Zak Salehian (guitarist and vocals) who appears on Agora, and three new members, Dougie Pocasangre (drums), Bronwyn O’Keefe (bass) and Jose Miguel Norena (guitar).
“Neophiliac”, the opening track, is by definition, a word for someone who has a strong affinity for novelty and new things. Is this sardonic disapproval or exposive admittance? Haunting, the track opens like a moaning of ghosts, underlayed with solemn, rhythmic bass and echoing electric guitar. The track accumulates lost sounds interspersed in the darkness of its sonic landscape. It builds gradually and disintegrates again, like the motions of a wave, and feels redolent of some of Fontaines D.C.’s ubiquitous reverbic basslines and insouciant vocals.
The epicenter of the album, “Laugh”, is perhaps also the catchiest, with an emblem of hope in the lyrics: “Dream big, dream big.” The guitar chuckles between lines like “laugh when you’re happy…” catching itself and jogging into the next verse. “Mundies” opens with a more nostalgic, punk-rock feel, and is more uplifting in its guitar. Like much of the album, it feels obscured, hazy, and tenebrous.
To listen to Dour is to be adrift on a dark sea that is both threatening and lulling. You can’t quite see where you’re going, and it feels tumultuous, but not unsafe. The sky is dark, but you’re captivated. Agora has the presence and weight of a Rothko painting; dark and grand, contemplative, and all-encompassing. Something to get lost in. Confronting but never sinister, you just can’t rip your eyes, or ears, away from it.
