Calendar Days by Dick Diver Review

It seems rare nowadays that a sophomore album can eclipse the debut, but Dick Diver’s latest release bucks the trend. Calendar Days is a superb record, full of warmth and depth but still possessed of a certain roughness around the edges. They remain consistent throughout eleven tracks of jangly pop rock, with very few slip-ups. The band meanders through a variety of sonic influences, but still keeps a strong grounding with a distinctly Australian flair.

Calendar Days gets off to a slow start with the opening track “Blue & That”, a restrained song, light on guitar and drums and an outro featuring a saxophone. The album then moves on to a solid run of tunes with “Alice”, title track “Calendar Days” and the second single pulled from the record, “Water Damage”. Each song features a more expansive full-band sound than the opener, with more attention to the melody and lyrics. It was here I found myself being drawn into the album, the slight coarseness to the recording, the straightforward instrumentation and the loose, almost uncertain, voices.

It’s here that the album reaches its weakest point, with the track “Boys” sticking out like a sore thumb. While I wouldn’t describe the rest of Calendar Days as tight, “Boys” stands out for how messy it is. However, the record recovers after that with the excellent “The Two Year Lease”, an acoustic duet built upon the beautiful harmony of guitarist Alastair McKay and drummer Steph Hughes’s voices. It’s here that Mikey Young’s production begins to move away from the slightly low-fidelity influence, removing unnecessary roughness without contributing unneeded polish to the record.

The album flows on from there with two more rocking songs, “Lime Green Shirt” and “Bondi 98” and another softer tune in “Gap Life”. The closing track “Languages of Love” is a song that takes a step towards a slightly more psychedelic sound. There’s a tinge of sadness as the record ends, as a longing for simple yet beautiful songwriting on the album takes its place.

On Calendar Days Dick Diver have built upon the groundwork they set in their debut, creating an album reminiscent of predecessors The Go-Betweens and label-mate contemporaries Twerps, but still distinctly their own.