SPiN – Dig Your Own Grave

I give this song 5/10 – average. In beers it is a Fat Tire. It is trying to be cool and Indy, but it is lazy. Fat tire is not that good but plays of the fact that it is craft beer. The fact that SPiN identifies as part of the Indy rock scene but puts out boring songs like this remind me of how lazy Fat Tire is to the craft beer world.

About 15 years ago, give or take a few there was a movement in music where sloppy distortion laden vocals and guitar had a massive surge in popularity. Bands like, The Hives, The Strokes, The White Stripes, etc. all enjoyed success and critical acclaim. That is what SPiN is trying to emulate with this song. Keep in mind that they are trying to recreate a sound that was popular more than a decade ago. Dig Your Own Grave is a single released in conjunction with a music video of the same name. The song is a high energy song with distorted vocals and guitars, and some studio added vocal layering in parts. To put it bluntly it is boring. The whole thing. I’ll start with the music.

The Music revolves around a simple 4 note guitar theme with intermittent pauses, and a basic 4/4 drumming pattern. I am not saying that there is anything inherently wrong with this, but I think if you are going to have a simple music pattern, it is important to have good lyrics, or at the very least clear lyrics. The Sex Pistols are a great example of this. They were sloppy, loud, and simple, but they had lyrics that really were revolutionary for their political impact.

The lyrics I could make out in this song were: dig dig dig (repeate for a while) your own grave.” “I forgot to mention; the road to hell is paved with good intention” “keep a look over your shoulder.” How many clichés can you possibly fit into one song? I do not understand the point this song is trying to make. I guess that the subject of the song has crossed someone, possibly the singer, and this has led to an increased paranoia because the singer will have his/her revenge. Sounds like most Rolling Stones songs (See tumbling dice, 19^th nervous breakdown, Ain’t no use crying). I’m not even disappointed with the subject matter, just the overused maxims. Dig Your Own Grave is such an overused statement it has lost all cleverness.

I also think that the song went on too long. The first minuet of the song you have heard everything the song has to offer, in that the song just repeats after that. It gets old very quickly.

My final criticism is the video. The video is an attractive blonde girl dancing around somewhere in California, then at her apartment, then later with a shovel. I understand the shovel, but I do not get the rest of it. The girl is not a good dancer, and she makes a lot of funny faces so my assumption is that this band does not take this song very seriously.

I admire that this group plays instruments. That is something that seems to be on the decline these days, so it is nice to know that there are still bands out there trying to make it work.

Check out the video here.

-Sam Hill