Cadaver Dogs

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FERDY BELLAND, SENIOR EDITOR - SKINNY MAGAZINE

www.theskinnymag.info

This album kicks off with a shit-kicking five-across-the-eyes entitled “No One But Myself to Blame,” which spells out the Cadaver Dogs (a sibling band to the Manvils) as one of the better Vancouver bands which cheerfully dedicate itself to punked-out pre-1980 forms of leather-n-whiskey rock and roll…where the only white belts around were the ones used to hang yourself in jail. Pariah Social’s dirty dozen songs give many nods to Gram Parsons, Mike Ness, Hank III, the Black Crowes, the Drive-By Truckers, and of course the classic underlay of the Stones and the Faces. I only wish Pariah Social’s rather dry production had a fuller Terry Date / Mike Clink swell to it, as it’s always critical for exciting live bands (such as the Cadaver Dogs) to ensure that their live frenzy is captured on album, but that’s not anyone’s fault…these guys probably blew their recording grants on flats of malt liquor; they’re being true to themselves and acting in accordance to established hard-rocking tradition (everyone needs to blitz themselves after midnight at Profile Studios at least once in their Vancouver life). And besides, the songs are greasy and gripping and gritty and great. When they said the South will rise again, they probably meant White Rock

JANELLE PRAMBERG - MONGREL ZINE - April/May 2008

www.myspace.com/mongrelzine

The CADAVER DOGS are, of course, easily spotted as the big, tall guys boozing it up at the Railway. As bands go, Vancouver doesn't have another one quite like this ragtag bunch of louses (also known as Dusty Doug Smith, Mike O, Mike L, and Jay Douglas) who unashamedly wear their boozy ways on their drunken sleeves. Together in one incarnation or another since before kids first set Cowboys up against Indians (well, since 2001 anyways) they're finally releasing their brand spankin' new disc PARIAH SOCIAL, recorded with a stocked mini bar in arm's reach.

These urban cowboys like their country and they like it dirty. but don't let the CADAVER DOGS fool you with songs like "Touch Me Behind the Liquor Store" (A naughty number with more yearning bark than horny bite) and "Beer Flavoured Beer" (A wet, fast-talkin' ode to both Johnny Cash and to, well, you know). They may be stumbling around like drunken rogues trying to pick up with "the After Hours," but I got a feeling they're really just softies on the inside. or maybe it's just a heavy dose of Catholic guilt, because for every admission of being "Hungover in Church Again," there's a repentant pleas coming soon after. "Lord Protect Your Fools" is the soundtrack to those moments when your best friend is holding your hair as you are clutching your stomach and bent over the toilet at the union Pub, heaving, in time, to the DOGS lamenting that they've just been screwed, while "Lost In Translation" reminds you of how you got there in the first place as Mike sings about trying to drink a wandering ex right out of his mind.

Kept together by Jay's dynamic drumming and Mike's scratchy vocals, PARIAH SOCIAL is the perfect album to go home to after last call, with the kind of songs that are stuck in your pounding head the next morning even though you were too drunk to remember the hard working band up on stage the night before.

"KEY IS TO MAKE IT A PARTY" STUART DERDEYN - THE PROVINCE NEWSPAPER(Vancouver, Canada) Friday, February 22, 2008

CADAVER DOGS PARIAH SOCIAL CD RELEASE PARTY

A band needs a dream. Something to keep players fired-up and focused and chasing its goal is key. "Drum-carnage" man Jason "Gunthar" Douglas aims high. "All I want is to have a song featured on one of those CSI montages," says Douglas. "You know, where Portishead plays while a brain is being cut up."

Fitting that Douglas plays drums in the Cadaver Dogs. Self-described on MySpace as a "country/garage" group, the quartet is Mike "Cowboy Zero" O on lead vox and guitar, "Dusty" Doug Smith on bass and Mike L. on second guitar. This weekend, the group releases Pariah Social, 11 tracks and one hidden tune of swaggering, staggering rock 'n' roll like punks and gutttersnipes used to make.

This is the kind of band that breaks bar-sales takes where it goes. "Yeah, and the people coming to see us buy some beers, too," says Mike O. Sort of started by another guitarist -- former Nerve magazine dude Bradley Damsgaard -- the Dogs sort of became O's band. The onetime Thor axeman tells the story about how: "So this guy asks me to join his band because he hears I play guitar. Then he asks me if I sing. Then he wants to know if I have any songs . . ."

Indeed O did. His slice-of-life musings range from the self-explanatory and sorta icky "Touch Me Behind the Liquor Store" to the nearly anthemic "Beer Flavoured Beer." The last track is about being asked by a bartender what "flavour" of offsales O wanted. It has a funny remix by Nuclear Weasel. The album version includes a sizeable "Kazoostra." "I'm thinking I might need to go buy one of those Bob Dylan harmonica things and an actual kazoo for the show," says O. "Yeah, the plastic dollar-store ones we used for the session were one-time-only," says bassist Smith.

Yeah, you guessed it, these guys are cynics with a passion for playing. All are well-experienced with the local scene, having logged many a mile in the punk, metal and other crowds. "And we'll play with any bands in those genres now that are hard-working like us," says Smith. "The key thing is to make the show an event and a party."

Soreheaded and hoarse vets of Cadaver Dogs shows will testify. These guys howl like the rockin' dead at a, well, Pariah Social.

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