What should one think of a band that has highlighted in its biography that its members met in the "Pop" course at the Hamburg University of Music? It all sounds like signs of a mass-compatible band. However, DAKOTON also wants to make a bit of punk, with influences from rock and pop. Can that work out?
DAKOTON is releasing their debut on a CD that comes with very good sound quality.
The music school has left its mark, or perhaps it’s the wallet, or the parents who didn’t want their students to go to a backyard studio.
“No Place for Compromises” is by no means a sound without compromises. Rather, it is a mass-compatible sound reminiscent of Wir sind Helden, or Tocotronic, if they were extremely well-produced, or even the Hamburg band Echt. The lyrics address problems, feelings, and life views of puberty, young adults, and those in their twenties who are just discovering the world.
The rhymes are quite nice, although they also remind one of Echt. In some lyrical bright spots, the combo sometimes has the eloquence of bands like Die Ärzte. However, that certainly does not mean that the band comes anywhere close to the guys from Berlin.
What is really annoying, though, is the album cover. There are four guys who probably come from a better area in Hamburg and have never really crashed and don’t really know what the sound of the street is, but would like to be harder and cooler. But they are not. Pin-Up Boys for the suburban girls with a sound for the masses.
The fact that the band currently has only one concert listed on their homepage and MySpace page doesn’t exactly speak in favor of the guys.
Overall, the debut album is not really interesting, at least for anyone from the punk scene. For the good people of the middle class who want to rock a bit, but please not too hard, DAKOTON might be quite nice.
