My Dad Is Dead
The Taller You Are, the Shorter You Get

THE REVIEW

Music born from depression, from a metropolitan fear.
My Dad Is Dead has always been the personal diary of Mark Edwards, songwriter and guitarist from Cleveland, Ohio, a release valve to depict his negative philosophy, riddled with traumas, doubts, nightmares, primarily caused by his father's death.
Initially (1984) the sole member of the group, soon joined by John McEntire on drums (later with Bastro, Tortoise, Gastr Del Sol) and Jeff Curtis on bass, Edwards immediately proved himself, not only as an apocalyptic storyteller of his own sufferings, but also as a talented songwriter and instrumentalist, as well as the sole keystone of the group.
Completely detached from any type of scene or genre, My Dad Is Dead was the interpreter of a blend ranging from dark, post-punk, new wave guitar music à la Television and The Feelies, the pataphysical style of fellow citizens Pere Ubu, and the desert sound of The Dream Syndicate with a home-made touch, although in the early days their mix of genres still contained the last spasms of hardcore from Mission Of Burma and the noise rock of Band Of Susans.

They sounded like a rejection of alienated industrial civilization sent straight to wander the remotest corner of the American desert.

The first four chapters were released in just three years, from 1986 to 1988. They were albums with a certain quid, sufficiently rich in ideas, melodies, and above-average production in the lo-fi rock scene, yet possessing a sound in desperate need of focus, unpolished, disordered, and inconclusive.

In 1988, the lineup underwent the first of many shocks that would mark the entire artistic trajectory of My Dad Is Dead: Edwards returned to his roots, almost entirely abandoning McEntire, who was about to debut with Bastro at that time, leaving him in My Dad Is Dead only as a "consultant," and employing Curtis on bass on just four occasions. Playing all instruments and writing all the music and lyrics, Edwards created the double LP "The Taller You Are, The Shorter You Get", released in early 1989 by Homestead Records, associated with Sonic Youth and Big Black, but mostly recorded the previous year. Paradoxically, this fifth work turned out to be the best-played album of My Dad Is Dead, but the evolution is complete from every angle: the sound is compact, moving away from lo-fi and the hardcore remnants of previous albums to acquire a more "professional" sound, all wrapped in a heavy pop layer that is anything but naive or pandering to trends and clichés, distant from both the refinement of indie pop and the grittier noise pop, representing a middle ground between the two worlds.
An inclination towards experimentation is displayed, in any case, with 14 tracks of an average duration of 5 minutes. A format not precisely conventional, in which Mark Edwards enjoys playing the role of Johnny Marr, albeit stripped of the romantic decadence of the Smiths' guitarist. Above all, though, what could previously be defined as ideas, small inputs, finally became complete intuitions. A perfect example is the post-rock ante-litteram, just as friends Bastro (with whom My Dad Is Dead would share a split in 1990) were shaping the math rock, of the instrumental "For Lack of a Better Word", placed at the opening. It's one of the masterpieces contained in "The Taller You Are, The Shorter You Get", a dizzying and powerful up-and-down of crazed guitars capable of foreshadowing one of the most representative sounds of the '90s. Equally sublime is the rock'n'roll cadence of "The Big Picture", exhibiting guitar riffs à la Tom Verlaine on obsessive Industrial drumming, while "Seven Years" brings to mind the best R.E.M. drenched in typically post-punk darkness. "Too Far Gone" finally opens a tiny crack of light but is a carefree song solely to the extent that it can be an indie pop song sung by an unsettling Nick Cave. To ensure the success of "Planes Crashing", there are funk guitars reminiscent of Gang Of Four, interrupted at the end by the sinister sublimation of dark bass and furious swerves of psychedelic guitar. "Boundaries", a sad pop song bringing a "healthy" breath of resignation, is the deepest and most poetic moment, followed by a cut-and-paste of Beck in his funk-punk era ("Can't Get Started"). When Edwards transforms into the Bastro of pop-rock ("The Only One"), allowing himself to be carried into "hard" sounds, he demonstrates his versatility and his ability to never risk sinking the album due to a lack of cohesion. Acid Folk guitars ("World On A String"), depressed songwriting sung in the register of Husker Du ("What Can I Do"), the American desert entrusted to The Cure ("Whirlpool"), the special ballad of "Nothing Special", the Smiths extended in "A Man Possessed", and the wave of "So Much To Lose" conclude, offering the listener a perfect and personal summary of styles, finally giving space to hope, a sunlight still hidden by thick clouds but present.

"The Taller You Are, The Shorter You Get" establishes itself as the ultimate pop record in the post-hardcore era, a vade mecum of a "popular" work multifacetedly integrated in its time, winking at the past, anticipating the future.

My Dad Is Dead is still alive today, despite zero sales returns, constant lineup changes, and the perpetual eclipse of inspiration, surprisingly recovered with the eclectic "A Divided House" in 2005, a perfect celebration of their twenty-year career.

In any case, it is impossible not to recognize "The Taller You Are, The Shorter You Get" as a forgotten masterpiece: perhaps not as aesthetically extreme as other contemporary musical theorems carried forward by Slint, Bitch Magnet, or Blind Idiot God, it is actually one of the most daring enterprises of that period, unusual in its eccentric reinterpretation of feedback, bold in its conveyance of disheartenment bordering on the absurd.