Dr. Dog Announces New Album That Reworks Songs From Their Debut

Indie-rock stalwart’s, Dr. Dog just revealed plans to drop new record consisting of tracks reworked/retooled from previously unreleased bootlegs recorded on cassette.  Before the existence of 2005’s Easy Beat and even before 2003’s Toothbrush, these harmonizers, tipping their proverbial hat to the likes of The Beach Boys and The Beatles, laid claim to a stack of rickety-cuts fervently referred to as 2001’s The Psychedelic Swamp.

Now, after much tinkering and tweaking, the boys of Dr. Dog will officially be releasing The Psychedelic Swamp on February 5, courtesy of ANTI-.  In the grand scheme of things, the band apparently had always planned to revisit their debut LP, according to vocalist/bassist Toby Leaman:

“The concept behind it is that we were always going to redo it and make it super-accessible pop, which was built into the concept of Psychedelic Swamp.”

While most of the songs from the original 2001 record were updated and re-recorded for the current rendition of the album, Dr. Dog also contributed a few new cuts coined off the original premise of older songs.  Leaman details the origin of brand-new track, “Bring My Baby Back,” which is based on the song: “Engineer Says”:

“‘Engineer Says’ is a kind of slinky, upright bass, organ, kind of really harsh guitar song, and there’s some sax on it – sort of like a pulsing, swaggering beat.  And then the other one is almost emo or something, with a pop wall of climbing vocals.”

Calling back original band-members and songwriters to once again flesh out humble beginnings, Toby Leaman and the rest of the hellions from West Grove, Pennsylvania enlisted the help of former guitarist Doug O’ Donnell to finely tune a stack of rough-cuts he once penned:

“There’s an instrumental [song] that’s more in the Beach Boys realm – oohs and ahs and Hawaiian-style guitar and block harmony and stuff,” said Leaman, concerning O’Donnell’s songwriting additions.  “And there’s another one of his called ‘Golden Hind,’ which is this lyrically absurd tune, but it ended up sounding great.  We ended up liking it so much it’s the first song on the record, which is weird because Doug’s singing it and he’s never been on any of our records – no one knows his voice.”