Album Notes

Because of indie rock's sudden, enthusiastic rediscovery of Joy Division, it's likely My Dad Is Dead is going to be derided as some sort of hip interloper that's jumping someone else's trend. Don't make that mistake. Mark Edwards has been a player in the crying game since 1984, and The Engine Of Commerce is hardly a lame attempt to make bank. Full of maudlin guitar lines, moaning organs and vocals that make Stephin Merritt sound enthusiastic, Engine is clearly the work of a man who's seen a lot of life (40 years, if "Stories Left Untold" is to be believed). Yet rather than succumb to glum stereotype, Edwards lets his songs swell with hope and promise. In a winking refutation of the classic Ian Curtis adage, Edwards opens "Labor Of Love" with the lyric "There is nothing that could tear us apart," and even though the Peter Hook bass line is sinister, the sentiment is profoundly endearing. Engine is full of moments like these-when sunlight peeks through the chilly music and offers a glimpse of hope. Though there's little on the album that lingers once it's switched off, Edwards' sincerity instills every second of playing time with genuine sweetness. Who knows-in another 20 years, everyone might be rediscovering him. (Magnet)

A lot of the pleasure to be derived from listening to The Engine of Commerce (a wonderful and razor sharp record title that speaks volumes of something that has without any doubt changed ­ and continues to change - the world around us forever), comes across in Mark Edwards stick-to-it himself, pure early 80's, indie-rock aesthetic. The record pours slowly across a broad stylistic range, swimming through all of Edwards's previous work (this being his first offering in over four years, a Presidential cycle of sorts) and updating it all along the way. From the easier-on-the-soul Joy Divison groove of "All We Want" to the brilliant usurping of Bob Mould (at being Bob Mould) on "Stories Left Untold" (one of this year's singular gems), the music on Commerce outlines a glorious heyday in American indie rock and serves up small essay's that touch upon every inch of the turf that My Dad is Dead has roamed over the past twenty years or so. And while this may sound too sprawling, or perhaps a bit obtuse, you have to listen to, or have been familiar with, My Dad is Dead and the simplicity Edwards has always employed with his music. Therein lies the great glory of Commerce: it is a record that had no intention of, or no need to, hit you over the head with even the slightest obviousness. It is wonderfully subtle, graciously moral, and (this is the kicker in today's day and age!) thoroughly non-commercial. Now that's not to say it's unlistenable, because it is anything but! It's a wonderful record to listen to, especially lyrically. On the other hand, it's real music, expressing real and personal sensibilities, and that's the sort of thing that has been lost on our culture over the past 20 boom-boom years: people. I like people. (Bangsheet)

After a decade or two, most artists either lose their focus or shift their priorities in such a way that they become a shadow of their former selves...losing everyone altogether in the transition. Mark Edwards...the one-man-band who calls himself My Dad Is Dead...is an exception to the rule. Fifteen years plus after beginning his band...Edwards remains true to his muse...writing and recording subtle underground pop. His vocals have always reminded us of John Cale...and that comparison holds true for The Engine of Commerce. This album was four years' in the making. Edwards plays and sings everything himself on all sixteen cuts. The album has a nice underproduced (i.e., sparse) sound that is hardly characteristic of an artist who has been recording this long. Plenty of heady tunes like "All We Want," "In Command," "On My Way," and "Memory of Your Kiss" make this album as entertaining as anything we have heard from My Dad Is Dead. Good stuff. (Rating: 4+++) (babysue)

As Interpol squirms into the mainstream with its dissaffected doom and gloom shtick, it seems only fair that Cleveland's My Dad Is Dead, one of the genre's pioneering acts, should get its share of the ,er, bright lights. In the same way that Robert Pollard is Guided By Voices, Mark Edwards is My Dad Is Dead. Backing musicians (including members of Prisonshake, Tortoise and GVB) have come and gone, but the MDID sound remains consistant thanks to Edwards' knack for writing brooding and jittery pop songs. Dreary but never hopeless, Edwards' smart lyrics and detached monotone depict Cleveland's lonely post-industrialism as strikingly as Ian Curtis captured the desolate zeitgeist of Manchester so many years ago. Formed in 1984, MDID has lingered in Joy Division's shadows longer than certain NYC fashionmongers have been tying their own overpriced shoes. This isn't to say the Interpol boys are doing it wrong--it's just that Edwards has had longer to get it right. On The Engine Of Commerce, MDID's latest full-length, Edwards scraps the band and plays all the instruments himself--the result is the most intimate and accessible entry in the band's double-digit catalog. Propelled by unobtrusive drum machines, keyboards, snaky baselines and percussive acoustic guitars that are equal parts XTC and New Order, such tracks as "Physical Fitness" and "Memory Of Your Kiss" are danceable almost in spite of themselves. You can nearly hear Edwards flailing about in a spastic fit of nervous rhythm as he sings. Imagine a twisted genetic amalgamation of Devo, The Fall and Talking Heads (when David Byrne was still creepy, not calypso-obsessed), and you're on the right track. My Dad Is Dead may not have reinvented the proverbial wheel, but when you've tapped into something this powerful and startingly sincere, why muck it up with innovation? (The Other Paper)