Dancer Equired, the band's first album for Merge, is a return to the hive, even if the record's creation was out of their usual boundaries. For the first time, the trio escaped to a studio, namely Columbus Discount Recording and the famed Musicol, during the summer of violence. With the help of Adam Smith and Dustin White, Times New Viking recorded and produced an album sounds like a mellow night out. Though it abandons the pissy histrionics of the past, the record retains the loud, brash, mammoth guitars but also magnifies the bright, beautiful traits the band has nurtured since the beginning.
Dancer Equired is a new chapter, sure to attract an entirely new audience of intrigued listeners while keeping old Times New Viking fans perfectly satiated by not abandoning those early ideals. Rip it up and start again.