Dog Day Get Spookier, Noisier

Stuff four people into a van for long enough stretches at a time, and the boundaries of their preferences and predilections will begin to blur.

When Halifax's Dog Day formed in 2004, it was a coming together of splintered bands. Vocalist/guitarist Seth Smith and bassist/vocalist Nancy Urich had stepped away from the thoughtful, melodic pop of The Burdocks. At the same time, drummer Casey Spidle and keyboardist Crystal Thili were emerging from speedy noisecore act, The Hold.

Five years down the road and in light of their latest release, Elder Schoolhouse — a 12-inch produced by indie legend Rick White — it seems as though Dog Day's respective couple camps are each drifting towards where the other began.

For starters, Spidle has left the band — on good terms — to focus on his singer songwriter gig, Husband And Knife. He also just started a new pop-rock outfit, Bad Vibrations.

"He'd been in bands as the front guy for years and years and then suddenly [with Dog Day] he finds himself behind the drum kit for five years," says Urich. "I can understand it."

The remaining members of Dog Day (they've added Rob Shedden on drums), meanwhile, are drifting into a realm of rock that has more and more in common with the raucous, experimental genre that Spidle came from.

Elder Schoolhouse's most intriguing track — the 12-minute long (and aptly named) "New Beginning" — closes with an eardrum-assaulting 10 minutes of feedback, distortion and wailing guitars.

"We've been doing a lot of that lately, in between our songs, on stage," says Urich. "We just decided... 'Screw it, let's do this; it's gonna be good times,' and it was. It was something new to do. We do a lot of pop songs and we have a lot of pop songs waiting to be done, but we like noise bands."

Fans needn't worry; there's still plenty of pop in Dog Day's future, but it's definitely heading down a spookier path. If the sinister mood of their latest full-length, Concentration, wasn't hint enough, listeners should be able to spot the change in Elder Schoolhouse's other four tracks.

"It's a lot of fun to play with that kinda stuff and make a lot of noise," says Urich. "We like it... If we have a pop song that's already heavy, we just add more stuff to it to make it more fun to play and hear. We're probably going to do a lot more stuff like that. We're probably not going to put out an entire noise record, but we will keep doing that, definitely."

Some of the credit for Dog Day's current on-record persona should probably go to White. Elder Schoolhouse is named for the ex-Eric Tripper's studio, and its second track, "Dark Day," was penned by White specifically for Dog Day.

It was an intimidating prospect at first, says Urich — both having White as a producer and trying to master a song of his creation — but their fears turned out to be unwarranted.

"He's really easygoing," she recalls. "I guess at first, we were going to play ['Dark Day'] kind of slower because we found it sort of difficult to play, but when we got there, we played it at the speed of light... It wasn't scary at all."

Dog Day are currently on the road showing off their new record. Here's where you can catch them:

Oct. 29 Kingston, ON @ The Mansion w/ Attack In Black
Oct. 30 Guelph, ON @ The Albion Hotel w/ Attack In Black
Oct. 31 Welland, ON @ Slovak Hall w/ Attack In Black
Nov. 3 Waterloo, ON @ Starlight w/ Attack In Black
Nov. 4 Hamilton, ON @ The Casbah w/ Attack In Black
Nov. 5 Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern w/ Immaculate Machine
Nov. 6 Peterborough, ON @ The Montreal House w/ Attack In Black
Nov. 7 London, ON @ Call The Office w/ Attack In Black