The chorus, an earworm featuring hand claps and female backing vocals, could be the sign-off to a break up letter. “How Simple,” Dog’s poppy opening track and lead single, operates similarly. Quinlan scatters “Writer” with impressionistic details-a scene of animal violence, a conversation about changing one’s mind-and the ambiguity lends her lyrics a certain universality. The act of interpreting art from a distance, of pouring one’s soul into the passions of others, is a testament to the power of mystification. The sentiment repeats throughout the album, and so does the verbatim phrase, appearing again in the chorus of “What the Writer Meant.” The titular writer is tellingly absent from the song’s narrative, while a woman instead explains his or her intentions. It is a concise reflection on the ways that she and her characters have been influenced by the desires of men around them, unwillingly ceding power to those who don’t deserve it. In the third act of “Not Abel,” the song turns from Biblical commentary to personal anecdote: “Voice on the radio again / Strange to be shaped by such strange men,” Quinlan sings. Peeling back the curtain on the multivalent nature of power is a persistent theme on Bark Your Head Off, Dog. He wanted something that his brother had but he did not-acceptance, and the power that comes along with it. Therefore, he was among the first to grapple with the entirely human emotion of jealousy. Cain is said in the Bible to be the first human born into this world, after his parents arrived ex nihilo. In her version, Cain is deeply troubled by his complex relationship with the brother he ends up killing. (Mark Quinlan, Frances’ brother, is Hop Along’s drummer.) On “Not Abel,” the second single from the Philly indie rock band’s new record, Bark Your Head Off, Dog, Quinlan turns the traditional narrative of good and evil on its head. But leave it to Hop Along’s Frances Quinlan, purveyor of fairy tales disguised as charming indie rock, to craft a distinctly human narrative from these few opaque Biblical verses. For a band comprised of a sibling pair, Cain and Abel might seem a tricky subject to tackle.
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