Album Review: The D.O.T. - Diary

The D.O.T. is the 'no one could've seen this coming' collaboration between Rob Harvey and Mike Skinner, the main men from defunct bands The Music and The Streets. Perhaps even Harvey and Skinner couldn't comprehend their worlds colliding, as their second album Diary is a rough-and-tumble mash of genres that sounds like when you accidentally play music out of two different internet browser windows simultaneously. Harvey's voice, once surging with a euphoric energy, is uninspiringly tone deaf without the bombast of multi-layered guitars behind him. The beats rarely stir with potential; Blood, Sweat & Tears bolts to life with horns in the chorus and a steady, deep percussive rhythm throughout, but it never rises to the occasion. 

Listening to Diary is a bit like playing Russian roulette with people auditioning for American Idol; if you're lucky, in every third song you'll get a lyric delivered on pitch and within range. Under A Ladder isn't that song – rather, it's Skinner sounding like he recorded his vocals on an iPhone after a weekend bender, potentially while still under the influence. The lyrics aren't anything worth cocking an ear at either; see Makers Mark's opening line: “Just cause I don't get mad, doesn't mean that I can't get mad”. Its quickly joined by a bastardised take on a Nile Rodgers' funk riff. 

Diary is a testament to the blinding effects of ego, wherein editing and polishing is eschewed for alienating lyricism and barely tolerable vocals. The D.O.T. were aiming for the allure and pop aesthetics of Pet Shop Boys, but landed somewhere closer to a Human League tribute act restricted to suburban garage performances.