3 out of 5

Label: Knw-Yr-Own

Produced by: ?

There’s a crushing frailty to D+’s What is Doubt For, spoken of in that album title and captured in the brash, single-mic recording, which finds Bret Lunsford’s gathering of like-minded indie rockers crowding this soul source with their ramshackle mininalist pop, to the extent that opener Attention’s distorted riffs crackle and clip. Calling one of D+’s loudest tunes “frail” may seem off, but it’s performative bravado: going back to that album title, this is a set thick with self questioning, pushing Lunsford’s general casual observations into something a bit more exposing, and raw. Thus juxtaposing Attention’s relative noise is the remainder of the disc, which struggles to make noise. It’s not exactly the acoustic approach of something like Destroy Before Listening, rather that the songs, if personified, seem scared to make much of a peep. Ideas come halfway and then fade; songs mercurialy shift from seeming like solo affairs to group members wandering in and out of a room, peaking finally in ‘How Easily Love Can Be Found’, with the band together but separate against a heavily mixed layer of nature ambience, Bret self flagellating his decision making.

As there’s often a somewhat happy-go-lucky cynicism to D+, What is Doubt For? can be a bit hard to take – especially when it concludes at its worst, with the cringey ‘Manipulate Me’s odd pronunciation and cheesily electro-ed vocals – but cringe is maybe also a familiar note for this band. Regardless, there are lingering notes that will make you return to this, and it takes on more form, weight, and importance the more time you give it.