If you think about it, “The Well and the Lighthouse” already sounds like A Giant Dog song: the propulsive, power-chord rhythm, the no-turning-back lyricism, the cathartic eruption of the vocal line at the end of each verse.
Still, today’s news that homegrown melodic punks A Giant Dog have crafted a front-to-back cover album of Arcade Fire’s 2007 opus Neon Bible is astonishing. Forget that the Canadian indie troupe’s poetically dense, musically grand sophomore disc originally came out on AGD’s home of Merge Records. Vocalist Sabrina Ellis tells the Chronicle that the label gave the band carte blanche to cover any album in the history of Planet Earth, so they chose Neon Bible at guitarist/singer Andrew Cashen’s suggestion, because they believed they could do something unique with it.
The result, tracked by Austin power producer Stuart Sikes, arrives as a revelation, more interpretation than tribute. Some of the arrangements are streamlined – a combination of baroque and b-r-o-k-e – while others are abstracted and reformatted. Ellis’ reveals that, halfway through their week in the studio, they got an oh-shit call from Merge founder Mac McCaughan, saying, “We only budgeted for a single LP and we just realized Neon Bible was released as a double LP!”
“An LP can fit 44 minutes of music, total,” explains Ellis. “We looked up the length of Neon Bible: 47:03. They released a double LP to get 3:03 of crucial moments on there. Being a punk band, we figured we could shave off those 3 minutes 3 seconds. We decided to play ‘Antichrist Television Blues’ as fast as I could possibly spit the words out. It’s already a heavy song, but the rage was flowing when I did those vocal takes.”
The new release, with contributions from Austin musicians Amber Corbourn, Walker Lukens, Sara Houser, and Jane Ellen Bryant, began its decimation through Merge’s sold-out MRG30 anniversary subscription. It hits the general marketplace Friday. Here’s A Giant Dog’s harrowing version of “Intervention” to stoke your anticipation.
This article appears in September 13 • 2019.