Bite

Description

On Bite, the new album by A Giant Dog, the idea of what one expects from the sound of one of their albums bends like space and time around a spaceship traveling at the speed of light. The most important starting point is that Bite is a concept album, concerning characters who find themselves entering and exiting a virtual reality called Avalonia. The first album of original songs by A Giant Dog since Toy in 2017, Bite finds the band – Sabrina Ellis, Andrew Cashen, Danny Blanchard, Graham Low, and Andy Bauer – at their peak as musicians, challenging themselves with more complex arrangements and subjects that forced them to step out of their own heads and into the minds of the characters inhabiting this supposed paradise. Themes of addiction, gender fluidity, ethical living in a capitalist society, bodily autonomy, greed, grief, and consent bubble beneath the promise of happiness in Avalonia. The songs on Bite are grandiose, evoking at times the operatic rock of Electric Light Orchestra and the drama of an Ennio Morricone film score. The album's narrative has an epic scope, its characters facing impossible obstacles and certain death, drawing close to the grand science fiction of Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak as well as the high fantasy of Dio and Iron Maiden. A Giant Dog has arrived at this narrative armed to the teeth with new ideas, unleashing synthesizers and string sections to create what Sabrina Ellis describes as orchestral, symphonic, and futuristic punk. To achieve this, they left their hometown of Austin, Texas, for the La Cuve studio, located just outside Angers, France. Living in the French countryside, A Giant Dog has set their vision of the future in a decidedly pastoral setting.