The lead single off of Dancing out the Door carries with it an air of closure for TJ Kong & The Atomic Bomb: The band sees this upcoming release as the third installment in a trilogy that began with their debut record, Idiots. According to Bruskewicz, “Idiots explores folk music, Manufacturing Joy explores garage, delta blues and country, and Dancing out the Door adds horns as well as organ and keys to explore our strange version of New Orleans, the holiest of the holies.”
The album begins with the intimate and cinematic intro of “Black Bats” which pushes through into the lunatic party of its chorus. They display a laid-back twang on “Mulholland Drive” before an out-of-this-world quote from Muhammed Ali leads into the animated “California Basement Blues”. “Dancing out the Door”displays its strength as the album’s namesake through its powerful drunken sing-along  sensation. The tracks “Heat Heat Heat” and “Long Black Dress”show off TJ Kong’s jazz and garage chops respectively, gearing the album up for it’s Herculean New Orleans finish on “Soul Asylum”.
The band’s notoriety in the much-buzzed-about Philly music scene comes on two strengths: Frontman Dan Bruskewicz‘s darkly poetic, catchy narratives and a raucous, high energy live show – the likes of which the band was determined to capture in the studio for their third record. Dancing out the Door was recorded to tape over two days at Kawari Sound Studios, enlisting the talents of producer Bill Moriarty (Dr. Dog, Man Man, Ron Gallo) and mastering engineer Joe Lambert. “We recorded the majority of everything you hear live, including vocals,” says Bruskewicz. “It’s a very freeing way to work, knowing that perfection is out of the question. ‘Perfect is dead.’ James Taylor told me that once on a very strange evening in Philadelphia.” |
