Last year, imaginative Canadian Rock duo Death from Above released (and toured heavily behind) its latest album, Outrage! Is Now. This fall the twosome is heading back on the road on its Heads Up! Is Now tour, named for its remarkable 2002 debut release, the 2002 EP Heads Up, which they’ll be playing in full (along with other material from throughout their career because Heads Up is about 15 minutes long).
The tour brings DFA and special guests La Butcherettes to Cincinnati’s Bogart’s on Nov. 18. Tickets ($22-$25) go on sale here this Friday, Aug. 24, at 10 a.m.
Death from Above’s singular instrumental set-up has resulted in a compellingly unique mix of heavy, noisy, catchy and danceable Post Punk. Drummer Sebastien Grainger provides the high-wire melodic acrobatics (think Ozzy Osbourne raised in the Manchester, UK Factory Records scene) while also pumping out the beats behind the drum kit, and Jesse F. Keeler holds down the musical end largely through his tone-variant bass playing, as well as some synth additives.
DFA famously feuded with LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, whose record label, also named Death From Above, served the band with a cease and desist order over its moniker. The legal wrangling complicated the roll-out of the band’s 2004 album debut, You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine, which was released under the name Death from Above 1979. While the band was livid (“james murphy is a selfish piece of fuck”), Murphy told Pitchfork it could’ve been worse — the band’s major label wouldn’t release an album from a band with the exact name as a known musical entity, while lawyers for DFA (the label) initially were ready to fight the release even under the 1979-amended name. Murphy claims he wouldn’t allow the copyright lawyers to force the band to come up with an entirely new name so close to the album’s release date.
Two years after You’re a Woman‘s release, Death from Above 1979 called it quits. But the band returned in 2011 for some shows, Keeler and Grainger clicked again creatively and the band released a new studio album, The Physical World, in 2014. Ahead of Outrage! Is Now’s release, the duo announced it was reverting back to the Death from Above name, sans 1979.
This article appears in Aug 15-22, 2018.