ALBUM REVIEW: The Dangerous Summer – ‘Gravity’

You forget, sometimes, how good The Dangerous Summer are. It’s easy to forget that Reach For The Sun is basically a sleeper classic at this stage, purely for how it’s allowed a consistent run to go unbothered almost 15 years since. Enough, honestly, to completely forget their hiatus between 2014 and 2017, when the material following has been this strong. They’re also a perfect embodiment for how a band doesn’t need some insane furore around them at all times; The Dangerous Summer have nothing of the sort, and as far as material is concerned, they’re doing just fine. Look at 2019’s Mother Nature, an album so straight-laced and embossed through the alt-emo way, but also juiced up to the nines to where it towers as likely their best album.

All that being said, though, it’s hard to be totally ignorant to why The Dangerous Summer have tended to stay under the radar. A lot of that is a bit more ancillary; they’ve frequently been not-great live, and their regrettable dalliance with NFTs at one point is yet to fully dissipate. But most of all, they’ve sort of settled into the expectation of their albums not being huge firestarters. That’s different from out-and-out complacency, but their adherence to key beats has become a pretty strict cheat sheet for them, especially lately. Gravity is another step into that reality, where the nebulous soup of ideas comprising a Dangerous Summer album isn’t as piping hot anymore.

Obviously it’s still good, thanks to the proviso of The Dangerous Summer being intimately familiar with their own wheelhouse. Their songs still soar and crest, and pull in some enormous might when catching the churn of the ocean on I Feel More Like Myself When I’m Losing You and Wild One. Their east coast home really doesn’t do justice to the Californicated spirit of an album like this, painted in colours of summer evenings on the beach and the perfectly temperate air. It’s a lovely feel, as has become standard for The Dangerous Summer in recent years particularly. There are definitely worse lanes to be so staunchly tied to for strings of multiple releases, in any case.

That said, compared to its two most direct predecessors, Gravity is where an extra coat of sealant spray would come in handy. It’s a little flabbier overall, and without the grace to carry those moments effectively, the album can plod and drag more than preferable. The fact it also feels longer than it is is another shin-kick that The Dangerous Summer aren’t really equipped to deal with. And when those issues can be traced back to the source of a sound that, at its core, isn’t all that flexible or attuned to growth beyond taking its preexisting components outwards, Gravity is hurt mostly through no fault of its own.

But hey, that’s what happens when you’re up to you’re now seven albums in, and haven’t strayed that far from where you initially set up camp. Other than outgrowing some of the more overt pop-punk of their earlier work, The Dangerous Summer have remained true to themselves, to a rather impressive degree. It’s not like they’ve fully stalled out now, either; Gravity isn’t some sudden stoppage point where none of this can work anymore. Frequently, it still does, as the title track and Dream remain spellbound in their usual romanticised colours of the wind, and Pacific Ocean’s teensy bit of grunge seasoning points to how they’re not averse to being proactive in fending off stagnation. Furthermore, AJ Perdomo’s bellow is on point as always, as the front-facing gut-punch that can be so critical among The Dangerous Summer’s arsenal on its own. Among some of the tidier production and shine, it’s one of a handful of craggier, weather-beaten touches that do indeed matter for keeping things moving on.

It can be an important anchor point to keep Gravity on track, rather than petering out like so many in its position otherwise would. But also, that’s not to be seen as just a buffer to stop this album from being worse. On its own merits, there is still an amount to like here, and The Dangerous Summer remain fairly proficient in what they’re doing. Though, on another metric, it’s absolutely worth noting that albums like this moving the goalposts in their favour. A ‘decent’, later-period album has rarely—if ever—led to its creators breaching the surface and staying there. But regardless of anything like that, The Dangerous Summer feel like the sort of band resigned in the knowledge that world domination isn’t on the cards, and are happy to chug on forward with a legacy predicated on another good release every couple of years or so. Gravity, then, is that with a bullet.

For fans of: Jimmy Eat World, Transit, Grayscale

‘Gravity’ by The Dangerous Summer is released on 21st June on Rude Records.

Words by Luke Nuttall