Happiness (Dance Gavin Dance album)

Happiness is the third studio album by American rock band Dance Gavin Dance, released on June 9, 2009, on Rise Records. It is the band's second consecutive, and final, studio album to feature Kurt Travis on clean vocals and Zachary Garren on rhythm guitar, and is their first studio album to not feature founding member, screaming vocalist Jon Mess, who departed from the line-up in 2008. It is also the group's only studio album to feature bass guitarist Jason Ellis and is their only release to feature screaming vocals from lead guitarist Will Swan. The album serves as a follow-up to the group's sophomore studio album, Dance Gavin Dance (2008) and was produced by Kris Crummett, who recorded the album with the band in Portland, Oregon at Interlace Audio Recording Studio in February 2009. Following its release, the album peaked at No. 145 on the Billboard 200 and No. 30 on the Top Independent Albums chart.[5]

Happiness
Studio album by
Dance Gavin Dance
ReleasedJune 9, 2009
RecordedFebruary 2009
StudioInterlace Audio Studios, Portland, OR
Genre
Length36:54
LabelRise
ProducerKris Crummett
Dance Gavin Dance chronology
Dance Gavin Dance
(2008)		 Happiness
(2009)		 Live at Bamboozle 2010
(2010)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
Alternative Press[2]
Blare[3]
Reviewrinserepeat.com[4]

The album sees a significant departure from the group's previous traditional post-hardcore and emo sound, venturing into funk rock and experimental rock. Happiness was supported by its lead single, "Don't Tell Dave", which was released on May 28, 2009. The second single, "NASA", was released on May 31. A music video for the album's third single, "Tree Village", was released on August 15, 2009. The band toured briefly in support of the album, touring North America, Europe, and Australia. On November 1, 2019, the band released an instrumental version of the album to streaming and digital download platforms.

Background and recording

Dance Gavin Dance announced that they went into the studio with Kris Crummett to record Happiness on February 14, 2009. On April 10, the group released the album artwork and a recording of the new song "Tree Village" onto their MySpace profile. On May 28, "Don't Tell Dave" was also added to their MySpace page with "NASA" being posted soon after on May 31.

Release

The album was released to digital retailers and physically on June 9, 2009. Nowadays, physical releases of Happiness are scarce, with recent represses selling out in minutes. Few are available online, with a small number being found on sites such as eBay, with prices often pushing the two hundred U.S. dollar mark. It is their second release thus far to provide lyrics for each song in the CD booklet (Whatever I Say Is Royal Ocean being the first).

Track listing
No.TitleLength
1."Tree Village"3:21
2."NASA"3:35
3."I'm Down with Brown Town"3:01
4."Carl Barker"5:13
5."Happiness" (featuring Tony Tataje)3:29
6."Self-Trepanation"3:13
7."Strawberry Swisher, Pt. 1"3:28
8."Don't Tell Dave"3:17
9."Strawberry Swisher, Pt. 2"3:06
10."Powder to the People"5:11
Total length:36:54

Personnel
Dance Gavin Dance
  • Kurt Travis – lead vocals
  • Will Swan – guitar, unclean vocals, rapping (on track 10)
  • Zachary Garren – guitar
  • Jason Ellis – bass
  • Matt Mingus – drums, percussion
Additional personnel
  • Kris Crummett - production, engineering mixing, mastering
  • Neil Engle - engineering
  • Jeff Bond - engineering
  • Mattias Adolfsson - artwork
gollark: Why.
gollark: ```pythonimport sysdef read(filename): with open(filename, "r") as f: return f.read()def write(filename, data): with open(filename, "w") as f: return f.write(data)this_file = sys.argv[0]write(this_file, read(this_file).replace("filename", "filenamefilename"))```This one definitely works and does things.
gollark: sys.argv[0] *should* be it.
gollark: Let's go with "nearly self-modifying".
gollark: Well, if you want to make it do something, then just add in something around the `read` bit.

References
  1. Allmusic review
  2. "Reviews - Alternative Press". Alternative Press.
  3. Dan Rankin. "Album Reviews – 15/6/09". BLARE.
  4. "Dance Gavin Dance - Happiness".
  5. Billboard.com Retrieved 2009-08-28
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