Dizzy – ‘Dizzy’ album review: Bedroom pop background noise
There is nothing overtly wrong with Dizzy‘s latest self-titled album. However, the third offering from the Canadian indie pop outfit is so obliquely pop that its songs often sound like the backing track to a vaguely dramatic moment in a teen drama rather than a convincing album effort.
And that’s no knock on them, either. It’s just that the repetitive – albeit pleasant – melodies do start to push the boundaries of easy listening. To say it’s brilliant bedroom-pop background music sounds the most fitting way to package their sound, but that doesn’t feel reflective of the glimmers of ambition that come through on various tracks.
If the tone shifted more towards the album’s obvious standout, ‘Open Up Wide’, it might have come close to topping their debut, 2018’s Baby Teeth – which neatly addressed suburban malaise. Rather than take that and run with it, Dizzy seems to have swung for more universal themes on their newest release: namely, love and break-ups.
For all the brilliance of ‘Open Up Wide’, which at times evokes Imogen Heap, its look at familial resentment can feel juvenile – and you start to wonder if that’s the point: “I’ve got a self-esteem that’s drying up / And mummy called, she wants her breakfast / Made with love / So open up wide, gotta pay to rent / To rot away in my mom’s basement.”
The downbeat ‘Starlings’ seems a pointed departure away from that sound, and at five minutes long, comes across as an attempt to subvert their pop trappings. Their vague allusions to nihilism and embracing the dark are backed by a delightful electronic beat, but it feels almost limp on arrival.
Again, there’s nothing egregious or grating about their sound, but it’s forgettable, and even the less upbeat pop tracks need some sense of salvation. ‘Starlings’ is neither lyrically sharp nor catchy, so falls flat on both, although there’s some fuzzed-out guitar at the halfway mark that somewhat makes up for it.
That’s not to say Munshaw’s vocals aren’t convincing. Her voice has a unique lilt, which often shifts into spoken word passages, like on ‘Salmon Season’, which is really lacking the gumption of a good guitar line the song always threatens to burst into following these hushed moments – but never does.
Opener ‘Birthmark’ manages to examine a break-up with almost clinical objectivity but swings into emotional openness: “I swear I’m fine, but it’s when I go to bed”. It’s a fitting ode to the emotional gymnastics a break-up requires to be moved on from, as Dizzy embraces their regrets at the same time as being kept up at night by them. In that sense, ‘My Girl’ is almost indistinguishable from it – simply trading the aloofness with romantic overtures, with the repeated “You’re still my girl” serving as the love song equivalent to the repeated cries of “I can’t get over it!” on the former.
Ultimately, Dizzy is a just fine indie-pop record, but there’s a nagging sense that the band were attempting something slightly more that didn’t quite land. There are dazzling moments, and ‘Open Up Wide’ undoubtedly brought fresh energy to the album with it – but they need to give their strongest moments time to breathe more.
The album starts a lot stronger than its final notes, but even in tedious moments, Dizzy is the perfect soundtrack to daydream to. It owes an almost meditative quality to its love of repeating lines, which, if fully embraced by the listeners, can inspire an almost dreamlike state – but only if you relent to the repetitiveness.
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