Everyone was hooked. Over the course of a few weeks, his 2022 single 'Girls' took the internet by storm, his monthly Spotify listeners quadrupled in numbers, his first tour sold out in minutes, and he released his debut album on the 6 September, 'What’s Wrong with New York?'.
Harrison Patrick Smith, a former substitute teacher by day and Freakquencies DJ by night, is an LA-born, Seattle-raised musician. Previously the frontman of indie rock band Turtlenecked, he ditched the bleached-blonde hair and filed away his Smiths vinyls to rebrand into The Dare, an electroclash and dance punk alter-ego audiences are calling the face of the indie sleaze revival.
Ten tracks long, 'What’s Wrong with New York?' is a successor to Smith’s controversial 2022 release 'The Sex EP' with its jagged synths and sardonic vocals. It's an energetic love letter to New York nightlife, fusing a sense of detachment with cynicism towards its identity and embracing electroclash essences tangled with a modern twist. It’s gritty and playful.
Tracks like ‘Open Up’, ‘Elevation’, and ‘I Destroyed Disco’ flirt with sensuality, urgency, and irony, at times criticising popular culture, recalling Fischerspooner’s '#1' and Peaches’ 'The Teaches of Peaches'. ‘Elevation’ and ‘You Can Never Go Home’ pull their own weight of vulnerability and depth to the album, with the former’s relentless rhythms building an urgent momentum and disillusioned vocals leaning into aloofness and dance-punk landscapes, and the latter being sonically sombre and moody, doting on themes of loss and nostalgia with a synth-wave touch.
'What’s Wrong with New York?' isn’t genre-bending nor polished with its reliance on pioneering electroclash tropes. Each track is distinctive, yet not expansive; there’s a lack of innovation and the lyrics are uninventive. But, not to be controversial, is that a bad thing when it comes to an album drawing inspiration from the club scene?
I don’t think so. The album is authentic and cohesive, with compelling sound and immersive atmosphere. Critics have responded to the debut release - with past critics having similar feedback for The Sex EP - as having lyrics that desperately try too hard and are half-baked. But in my personal opinion, The Dare’s discography is anchored with a wry sense of humour and commentary on superficiality. Just listening to 'Girls' a single time - which Smith commented was originally written jokingly - supplies enough evidence that expecting to have genre-bending sound and avant-garde penmanship is completely missing the point. The Dare’s discography is anchored in humour and raunchiness, cementing its place in targeting dance and energy spaces.
I love the album, which is a solid 4/5 for me. My personal favourites are ‘Open Up’, ‘All Night’, and ‘Perfume’. I’m not too convinced with an indie sleaze revival in 2024 being at all possible, but the return of the 2000s club nostalgia is extremely fun. I think he’s with it.
