Music Matters
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Viking's Choice: Dogbreth, 'Hoarder House'

Dogbreth.
Stillman Busselle
/
Courtesy of the artist
Dogbreth.

The huggable power pop of Dogbreth's Second Home is the work of punks who write youthful, larger-than-life songs that still wrinkle at the edges. It's the third outing from a band — its members split between Phoenix and Seattle — that plays with doo-wop rhythms, jangly Britpop guitars and ramshackle Thin Lizzy twin-leads.

Coming in at just under two minutes, the snippy "Hoarder House" acts as a self-contained short story in just five lines.

Dogbreth, <em>Second Home</em>
/
Dogbreth, Second Home

I'm sorry babe

I know you're doing your part

But I can't let anyone into this hoarder house of a heart

I look at people through a peephole

This was over before it could start

Songwriter and guitarist Tristan Jemsek knows his way around both a clever metaphor ("hoarder house of a heart") and wordplay. He turns the stalkery and sad near-homonym — "I look at people through a peephole" — into a punchline as he stretches out the sugary peeeeeeephole like a Peep left out in the sun, only to rip a guitar solo with all the swaggering grit of Slim Dunlap.

Second Home comes out August 5 on Asian Man.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Listen to the Viking's Choice playlist, subscribe to the newsletter.