Dillinger Four - C I V I L W A R (2008)

Despite having relatively few proper releases for a band of their longevity, Minneapolis’s Dillinger Four are beloved in the punk community. It’s easy to see why- the band is gracious to their fans, they put on a legendary live show, and above all, the music is consistently great.

Their last full-length, Situationist Comedy, came in 2002. Since then, the boys of D4 have been pretty quiet. As Paddy explained in a recent interview, two of the band members have day jobs that make recording and touring difficult (one owns the Triple Rock Social Club, as made more famous in NOFX’s “Seeing Double at the Triple Rock;” another is a licensed psychiatrist), so that explains the prolonged down-time between that album and this. The question is, of course, was it worth the wait?

The answer is, of course. Dillinger Four has lost nothing in the time between Situationist Comedy and C I V I L W A R.

Yes, I will type it like that consistently.

The album has all the hallmarks of classic D4- great vocals and harmonies, fun yet hard-hitting pop-punk melodies, great lyrics, and ridiculous song titles. A couple of favorites in the last category: “parishiltonisametaphor,” “Clown Cars on Cinder Blocks,” “Minimum Wage is a Gateway Drug.” That last one is, to me, up there with “Super Powers Enable Me to Blend in With Machinery” for great D4 songs titles. And thankfully, the songs all live up to their names (and the names- at least in spirit- are related to the topic of the song); “Gainesville” in particular is a great, slower song that is pretty hard to read as anything but a love letter to the annual Fest shows down in the titular city. And the trade-off vocals of “Like Eye Contact in an Elevator” will bury themselves in your head for days.

C I V I L W A R is a great record. It will no doubt please everyone who has been longing for D4 to make a follow-up to Situationist Comedy. While it does not hit the high point that their debut LP, Midwestern Songs of the Americas did, it’s an outstanding addition to their catalog. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another 6 years for the next one.

Rating: 4 stars