4 out of 5

Produced by: D+ (?)

Label: Knw-Yr-Own / K Records

A pretty big leap forward from the charmingly humble self-titled debut, the stride was apparently too exhaustive to support a full album, as head D+er Bret Lunsford hands over the reigns of the last four tracks to his bandmates for their respective projects – two to Phil Elvrum’s Microphones, and two to Karl Blau.  Their contributions certainly exist within the same shaky, quirky, loose folk realm as D+, but they’re also clearly different bands or artists with different writing styles and thus it’s a big hiccup in Dandelion Seeds flow, which is otherwise the only downside.

Cut It Out kicks things off with a much stronger narrative and sense of composition than anything on the previous disc.  The guitar and drums are still our mainstays, finding a solid groove and working it for 2 or 3 minutes, but there’s slightly less of a first take feeling to these tracks, as well as some dabbling – strictly dabbling, mind you, this is still a guy from Beat Happening so we’re still minimalist here – with keys.  Whether the intention was to make a sharper sound or it’s just a result of continuing to play together, while D+ (the album) comes across as a lark, just capturing a moment where some dude wrote some tracks and had some other musicians around, Dandelion Seeds feels like a confirmation that we’re listening to a group.  And indeed, five albums would follow.

The following songs keep up the energy and, even when Bret gets goofier like on Green Party – asking to arm the animals with weapons – it works because of how things have tightened up.  (The easy-rhyme lyrics heard on D+ were sometimes a tad embarrassing.)  Profits Are Soaring is almost a rock song, and Rusted is a true singalong tune with a great chorus.  It winds down on the moodier His Heels, and there we would have had an incredibly satisfying – albeit short – disc.

So, okay, we can appreciate the rest of the tracks as bonuses, but they still make listening to Dandelion on repeat a bumpier ride.  Microphones give us Buzz Buzz, an almost broken (purposefully) warbler sung by Bronwyn Holm, then Elvrum takes the mic for the cutesy (again, purposefully, ’cause it’s The Microphones) Pre Amp.  Karl Blau backs this up with the pleasingly polished folksters That Toad and the sound-effects-laden A Sweet Reminiscence, which can’t help but make you smile.