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New York City three-piece group, The Diggs, deserve special recognition becuase their music takes elements of a genre I don't like - in this case, emo - and making it listenable to my ears. How do they accomplish this seemingly Herculean task? By adding in tons of psychedelic shoegazey guitars, of course! Well that, and they've written some really good songs on their debut album "Commute". Although the emotionally earnest qualities found in The Diggs' songs and in lead singer/guitarist Timothy Lannen's voice may share some qualities with the current crop of faceless emo bands dominating American radio airwaves, songs like the hard-edged "Stagg" have enough gritty guitar work and lo-fi charm to better the rest of that genre's bands. Luckily for my ears, the Diggs are not really trying to compete with bands like Dashboard Confessional or My Chemical Romance anyway, since their tastes tend to skew more into classic guitar-heavy indie bands - the dissonant guitar sound of Sonic Youth is given a nice salute in "Faith In Strangers" while the "Minimum" tips a cap to both Ride and Coldplay, making it the stand-out track on an album of good songs that are definitely worth your time.
DAVID MANSDORF
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