Album Review: The D.O.T. - Diary
- Written by Ryan Lake
Less than four months after their debut album And That, Mike Skinner (The Streets) & Rob Harvey (The Music) return as the The D.O.T with Diary.
The D.O.T are a vanity project by two musicians well esteemed in their respective fields. It's apparent that both of these guys are trying new things in music, but this whole album sounds underdeveloped. If there is a finished product to be arrived at, this is not it: please try harder.
The songs are laid out very simply & the production on the whole is very basic. Lyrically there aren't many things to shout about & Mike Skinner's vocals on ''Under A Ladder' are the most offensive to the ear. Atrocious.
'Most Of My Time' is the best groove on the CD, ruined by Harvey's shrill vocals. The chorus does bring about a slight tinge of humour: “Most of my time is spent thinking about the past”, which is rather apt, because their glory days are certainly behind them in terms of musical output. In short, this album really isn't as good as anything either of them have ever made.
The first two bars of 'What Am I Supposed To Do' sound like a dark, gritty, trap-inspired hip-hop anthem; sadly that is one of the very few flashes of brilliance on the album. The song itself is the closest to sounding like a song by The Streets which means it isn't totally terrible, but not exactly a lot to shout about apart from the opening five seconds.
The perverse salsa 'Wherever You May Be' really is an unpleasant ordeal. This song, much like the rest of this album, feels amateurish. It feels as though their quality control standards haven't been applied in the same way as their previous releases.
In comparison to And That, the overall quality of this album is inferior. It seems that four months just wasn't long enough to create songs worthy of release; if this was a piece of homework it would be marked “room for improvement”.
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