Name: Donots
Release: The Long Way Home
Release Date: Out Now
Website: www.donots.com
Back in 2002 The Donots released their fourth full length record Pocket Rocket via Burning Heart Records, previously released the year before to much acclaim in their home country of Germany. It was fun, it was punk and while the lead single, Whatever Happened To The 80’s?, may have been as cheesy as triple cheese sandwich with the bread has been substituted for more cheese and wrapped in a ‘VOTE FOR PEDRO’ tee, it sure as hell was catchy. Now unless you paid attention and put in a little effort The Donots pretty much disappeared from consciousness, or so it would seem. They actually released a further three albums, two compilation albums, two DVDs made thirteen music videos and become a huge success back home and in Japan, won several German music awards and even recorded an anti-war song with Anti-Flag which urged listeners to attend a protest. Seriously, they did all that. Obviously it’s not as hard to believe if you a) are The Donots, b) live in Germany and like The Donots, c) live in Japan and like The Donots or d) are Anti-Flag. But despite them remaining a success in Germany and Japan it never stuck in the U.K.
Eight years after what more than a few people may have assumed was their last album, now see’s the release of their 8th and newest full length, The Long Way Home. The first thing that strikes you is that it contains 17 songs and has a running time of 58 minutes, 2 minutes short of an hour! When you are trying to convince people you are still around and still relevant that really is pushing it.
The second thing that becomes apparent quite quickly is that they have shed/lost their pop punk sound. Long Way Home finds The Donots experimenting (?) with Stadium Rock songs like the opening number Changes, acoustic ditties that sometimes verge on the Celtic with Parade of One, Let It Go and The Years Gone Bye. They show an aggressive side on tracks Make Believe, Hello Knife, and Break My Stride. They even get a little indie through Forever Ends Today and Stop the Clocks. Glimpses of their younger, bouncier sound pop up sporadically and then evaporate through out and produce the better of songs like High and Dry, The Right Kind Of Wrong and New Hope for the Dead.
It must be said that Long Way Home is not a bad album, but it also isn’t a great album. It’s too long and although no band should be chastised for not staying within the walls of their cemented sound and trying different things. The songs that are different do not contain enough of the same element that makes a record cohesive and sound like an album rather than a storage unit for a bunch of songs grouped together with a release date. It is enjoyable to listen to when you are at that moment listening to it but fails to state itself as enjoyable enough to remember it when you are thinking of what to listen to when you aren’t listening to anything at all. Maybe they are dogged by their past but a record is named a record for a reason, as much as something new is made or something different tried, the records will always be available for comparison and if they don’t meet or exceed that standard already set then it’s easily apparent. Unfortunately for fans of The Donots its quantity, not quality that stands out on Long Way Home.
Reviewer: Jordan Daniel
