I first heard White Denim in late 2007, a time when I would spend hours on various music blogs, downloading anything that caught my attention. I'd quickly listens through the dozens of songs I had downloaded, hoping a few would be worthy of repeated listens.
One evening, I encountered a live cut of the song, "Don't Look That Way At It," by White Denim on the blog Gorrilla vs. Bear. Initially, I was put-off by the forceful rock tune: The guitarist uses a looping pedal and layers complicated riffs, but it was all too messy and the three-piece group seemed out of sync, rushing their songs.
Not long after the band released the studio version of "Don't Look That Way At It," however, I totally reconsidered my opinion. After repeated listens, the chaotic, boundless energy I heard bursting out of their Texas garage made sense. There is longing in the vocals, and when the lead singer cries, "Darling," I got the sense that he couldn't quite figure out how else to vocalize his feelings, so all of the jamming and crowded noise was the band's attempt to communicate of his affection through some other nonverbal means.
This was around the time their touring E.P., 'Workout Holiday,' was becoming popular, and critics were drawn to their jam-based, hardcore rock songs like "Mess Your Hair Up" and "Shake Shake Shake" (both aptly named and reminiscent of early White Stripes). I was never quite head over heels for "Workout Holiday." I felt that there was something softer and more sincere out there that they had not yet landed on.
The band collected these early trades for their album, "Exposion," which they released in 2008. Here, bassist Steve Terebecki plays wildly and with heavy distortion; he looks like a high school sophomore and plays with similar irreverence. His style was striking, difficult to swallow at first, but unique in the way it encapsulates the band's energy.
Drummer Joshua Block fills every moment with his beats, making his drum kit sound like it was made with rusted aluminum cans; yet his wildness creates an ominous hum of symbols and snares that gives the band a nice sonic backdrop.
But the centerpiece of the band has always been the lead singer and lead guitarist James Petralli. His voice on these early records comes at you with force, and with an almost crazed anger, and he employs looping pedals on the guitar to impressive effect.
The band signed to Downtown Records in 2009 and immediately began to show signs of greater production quality.
From their third record, "Fits," came one my favorite songs in their repertoire, "Sitting," a jazz-influenced rock tune. The song ends with a two-minute outro, a slow, and oddly patient build up backed by soft, subdued vocals; the track was a marked change in Petralli and the band's style.
White Denim continued to evolve in with their 2010 album, "Last Day of Summer." The album was self-released online for free and was afforded minimal press coverage—if you blinked, you would have missed this album.
The album was a testing ground for the integration of a new guitarist, Austin Jenkins, who introduced a slower and more methodical style to the band's guitar playing. His addition gives the band a noticeably lighter feel, and this is further embodied in Petralli's vocals. Songs like "If You're Changing" are sweet, and not aggressive, and perhaps even poppy.
Their May 2011 release, "D," displays a more developed, cleaner sound, with stronger production and more diverse psychedelic influences. The album title refers to an inside joke in the band in which they liked adding the letter "d" to their names, for example, Dwight Denim.
On "D", Terbecki makes his bass sound more like a true bass rather than a broken guitar, and even Block seems to be employing a similar patience and restraint.
Petralli's vocals are almost entirely falsetto on the album, a trend being set by bands like Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes. It's clean, pretty, and it oddly fits right in with the same energy White Denim has had since their inception.
The video for "Street Joy," one song off "D," begins with no drums, just Jenkins strumming a guitar, until Petralli slowly joins him singing falsetto, accompanied only by his acoustic guiar. When the drums finally come in, Block is soft and restrained, even the once-wild Terebecki sits on a desk, slowly plucking away at his bass. Listening to them with no feeling of abandonment of an earlier identity, no animosity towards a change of sound, I thought to myself that this stripped down version of "Street Joy" is the best I've ever heard them play. They've arrived.
Experiment on, White Denim.
This week's five hum and beats are:
White Denim - "Tony Fatti"
Cults "Oh My God"
Lana Del Ray - "Video Games"
The Walkmen - "Paper House"
Florence + The Machine - "Shake It Out"