Good Dog Bad Dog

Description

In 2000 Back Porch Records re-issued Over the Rhine‘s independently released 1996-album Good Dog Bad Dog featuring new cover art as well as a slightly different tracklist (two tracks were removed and a new track, “It’s Never Quite What It Seems”, added).

Five years after the dissolution of their relationship with IRS Records, the Cincinnati-based lit-pop band Over the Rhine once again became a major-label presence when they signed with Back Porch, a new offshoot of Virgin Records. The group took the opportunity to refine and reissue their 1996 homespun masterpiece Good Dog Bad Dog, which had already sold 25,000 copies at concerts and through mail order despite never being officially released. Though Over the Rhine had originally planned a more expansive production for Good Dog Bad Dog, the new edition doesn’t tamper with the stripped-down, primarily acoustic approach that the band settled on out of necessity. Wise choice. The depth and maturity of the songwriting and the stark beauty created by the minimal settings are the album’s greatest assets. They create an aura of simplicity that lends authenticity to the themes of healing and hope that run throughout Linford Detweiler’s literate lyrics, so that when Karin Bergquist sings, “We don’t need a lot of money/ We’ll be sleeping on the beach/ Keeping oceans within reach,” it has the feeling of a mission statement. The Back Porch reissue of Good Dog Bad Dog makes only three changes (aside from the improved art direction), omitting two songs and adding one. Few fans are likely to miss «A Gospel Number», which never seemed consistent with the quality of the rest of the record. The concert favorite «Jack’s Valentine» is a better song, but it’s also a wise omission since the Kerouac hipness doesn’t really fit in with the soulful surroundings; it belongs on a funkier album. Those tracks have been replaced with «It’s Never Quite What It Seems», a beautiful breakup ballad that’s a perfect fit for this album, both in its sparse arrangement and its beginnings-from-endings lyrics. Its inclusion helps makes Good Dog Bad Dog more consistent and cohesive, improving an album that already stood as Over the Rhine’s finest offering. [Evan Cater, AMG]

> iTunes (https://music.apple.com/us/album/good-dog-bad-dog/444967520)

CD tracklist:

01. Latter Days – 5:34
02. All I Need Is Everything – 4:54
03. Etcetera Whatever – 4:52
04. I Will Not Eat The Darkness – 1:59
05. Faithfully Dangerous – 4:51
06. The Seahorse – 4:55
07. Everyman’s Daughter – 4:10
08. Poughkeepsie – 4:54
09. Willoughby – 3:32
10. It’s Never Quite What It Seems – 4:12
11. Happy To Be So – 4:45
12. Go Down Easy – 5:20

Note: Re-issued in 2018 by Great Speckled Dog in co-operation with Redeye as a Limited Edition 12-inch vinyl double LP, housed in a gatefold sleeve with lyrics and liner notes.

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