Dave House

Intersections (2009)

Rob Evans

I'll keep the introduction short because you probably know it all already. Dave House is in the Steal. This is his third album under his own name, and his longest-standing project. He is a London-based singer-songwriter who has increasingly begun to expand to a full-band setup and yes, you could apply the same description to Frank Turner if you wanted to.

With Intersections, Dave House does not reinvent anything -- he doesn't shake the ‘folk-punk' genre to its core and he doesn't really expand on his last two albums much. He does, however, present the tightest, most energetic and most cohesive album of his career, and one of the best folk-punk albums to come out of the UK so far, overflowing with charming and honest songs. Dave House has found out exactly what works for him and invited his friends along to help him craft his defining work.

Tracks like "Lungs" have a definite Ghost Mice feel, with a driving acoustic force backed up by Gaslight-esque electric guitar parts where the Mice would have their violins, whereas "Rails," with its bouncing bassline and distorted electric guitar, leans more towards indie pop influences. The success of many tracks is built on the mixture of the two genres -- catchy pop hooks combine with raw folk-punk passion and simplicity to create an album without any weak links whatsoever. There is not one song that detracts from the overall quality of the album, nothing that stops it in its tracks, nothing that outlasts its welcome.

The slow and fuzzy "Born Steady" creates the kind of intimate moment that perhaps isn't frequent enough on what is otherwise a rock album -- Dave House excels at this kind of personal touch, with just acoustic guitar, piano and his voice, and one of the few criticisms to be made of Intersections is that it often doesn't slow down for long enough to dwell on its best moments. "Make an Example" is a similar calm track, this time with the full band -- a lazily meandering song that lets you catch your breath before things kick off again with "60 Blocks Up," a blistering song where the electric guitar is at its least invasive, allowing for the acoustic to really take charge and dominate the song.

Dave House is deserving of your time. If you've never heard him before, then Intersections is the perfect place to start, and if you're already a fan then it will give you more of what you crave.