Sincerely isn’t a drastically different look for Dude York than the one found on their 2014 debut Dehumanize, but the new album emphatically accentuates the Seattle trio’s comely power pop features.
The lyrics of opening salvo “Black Jack” give an elevator-pitch version of the album’s backstory. “Too afraid to ask for help / Tried to do it all by myself /…Nobody does it all by themselves,” recalls Peter Richards in a strained tone that hits somewhere between Wolf Parade’s Dan Boeckner and Rivers Cuomo. Sincerely was first attempted as a home recording helmed by the band alone, but they ended up with months worth of work that received some less than enthusiastic reactions from initial listeners. DIY is always an honorable approach, but even a cursory listen to Sincerely reveals that these songs were written for bigger venues than house shows.
Some serious Seattle music scene lineage brought Sincerely out of the basement. Cody Votolato of the Blood Brothers suggested that they could re-record the album with him, and he subsequently brought in producer John Goodmanson, who has worked on classics from Sleater-Kinney, Unwound, Bikini Kill, Blonde Redhead, and loads more. Together they achieved ‘big’ and still managed to land on the right side of slick.
Dude York’s palm-muted verses and crunchy unabashed choruses owe just as much if not more to “Jessie’s Girl” and Weezer as they do to any project Votolato or Goodmanson have had a hand in before. There’s a certain charm in the way Sincerely is touched by Seattle’s legacy but at the same time stylistically unperturbed by it.