Dr. Dog has made a name for themselves with their do it yourself approach to recording and their throwback 60′s style pop music.  Terms like low-fi and retro have always seemed to define their sound, as their self produced early albums earned comparisons to homespun classics like The Beatles’ White Album and The Band’s Basement Tapes.  With each record however, Dr. Dog has seemed to experiment with production techniques a little bit more, getting further and further from their lo-fi roots.

If Fate marked the most sonically ambitious Dr. Dog’s album to date, Shame Shame is the album where they struck the perfect balance between old and new.  Bringing in an outside producer (Rob Schnapf) and recording in an honest recording studio for the first time, the band manages to walk the line perfectly between their rough-around-the-edges charm and slick production.  The result is an album that is both ragged and polished at the same time; with the added depth of production only serving to enhance what is already a great collection of songs.

For a band that always seems to be getting compared to someone else, this is an unbelievably original bunch of tunes.  Unique and melodic arrangements full of bouncy bass and piano, quirky harmonies, and a steady dose of scrappy guitar licks combine to form a sound that is distinctly Dr. Dog.  The band said they aimed to create an album that mirrored the energy of their live show, and songs like “Later”, and “Mirror, Mirror” show they did just that.  Other highlights include the opener “Stranger”, “I Only Wear Blue”, and “Jackie Wants a Black Eye”, but there is not much drop off from there.

Simply put, Shame, Shame is an absolute delight from start to finish.   There is no shortage of the band’s retro charm on this album, and throughout it’s eleven tracks the band turns in one winner after another.  Dr. Dog has always been a band that created albums that were greater than the sum of their parts, but things have never worked as well together as they do on this record.  The band has outdone themselves with Shame, Shame; their best album yet.