Here is a fairly legitimate neo-blue-eyed--soul outfit coming out of Calgary. Growing up in the territory of that city's bitter hockey enemy, Edmonton, seventeen-year-old me would never have believed that anything worthwhile ever came out of Calgary. Hell, I would never have allowed it. Which of course isn't to say that Calgary is devoid of musical talent - it is after all home to one of Canada's most talented contemporary songwriters, Chad VanGaalen, in addition to being at least partially responsible for one Leslie Feist, who grew up there - just that, and I don't say this as hailing from a regional rival, but the music scene of Canada's fourth-largest city has never gained much recognition on the national scale.
The Dojo Workhorse is a side project from Dan Vacon, one of the members of a Calgary indie-rock institution, The Dudes. As far as this record is concerned, I can at the very least appreciate the man's wanting to differ a little bit from his more well-known band's fairly run-of-the-mill indie-rock sound. There are few things more irritating in music than a side project that sounds exactly like an artist's regular project - AC Newman, I'm looking at you.
That said, The Dojo Workhorse is not one of these bewildering projects and judging from their first album, Weapons Grade Romantic, I almost want to say that Dan Vacon is on a much more interesting track than he is with The Dudes. More fragile, layered and personal than the raucous, boozy Dudes, Vacon here relies on his unique, reedy voice and obvious ear for a decent melody. All of this is set to very well-textured, emotive and smooth instrumentation that is evocative of the soulful, ornate pop of Elvis Costello in the early 1980s, particularly with rootsy highlight "I Got Life".
It is very easy to see that Vacon put a lot into this record as Weapons Grade Romantic is clearly an extremely deliberate and well-planned record and its production is quite lush to suit its tone. Vacon covers a lot of bases without spreading himself too thin and all of the record's elements fit together very nicely with equal parts radio-friendly lounge pop ("You Heartbreaker") and weepy balladry ("Laval Street") interspersed over the sweet, earnest white-boy soul that Vacon is clearly aiming for. At some points this might be considered akin to Bon Iver suddenly becoming a pub-rock outfit, such as in "Ohio".
In the end, however, Vacon's Dojo Workhorse comes off as slightly less eccentric version of Hawksley Workman, and while Weapons Grade Romantic is very charming, technically proficient and full of nice, sincere moments, it never at any point comes out to grab you. It lacks a show-stopping single and seems to be content to be very nice and largely inoffensive, in effect rendering it a very passive record. There is nothing that forces the listener to pay attention, it merely asks you nicely to do your best. This is, to be certain, a promising project for Vacon; he seems to be on to something that could work very well for him, in that it is giving him a chance to show off his songwriting chops, as well as his powerfully resonating voice. It might be interesting to hear what Vacon comes up with next, but until then we will all have to settle for this solid, but ultimately not particularly enthralling first effort.
