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Music

Dillinger Four

DILLINGER FOUR at Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor West), Saturday (June 20), 1 am. $15 or NXNE wristband. nxne.com.

IF YOU LIKE THIS BAND, BE SURE TO CHECK OUT Bridge and Tunnel at the Kathedral, tonight (Thursday, June 18), midnight.


After I leave my third and most urgent message on guitarist Erik Funk’s voice mail and then, days later, wait for an email that never arrives, it occurs to me that Dillinger Four are far from the hardest-working band in punk rock.

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The most damning evidence would be the epic interval between their third and fourth studio albums. It took six years to release 2008’s Civil War (Fat Wreck Chords), proving they work just slightly faster than Axl Rose. Not to mention that it’s four-?chord melodic punk we’re taking about here and not Brian Eno territory.

It’s almost all forgivable, though, when you listen to Gainesville, Civil War’s fourth track. Funk’s vocals and lyrics are infectious even when he commits the cardinal emo sin of using the word “summer” in a chorus.

Is it any surprise that they’re from Minneapolis? The Midwest work ethic may be absent, but the plaintive, scrappy, heart-?on-?sleeve pop punk (though grittier in their Hopeless Records years) is a better-produced relative of the Replacements, Hüsker Dü and, to a lesser degree, the Hold Steady (now living in Brooklyn).

Since promotion isn’t a priority, we’ll have to assume Dillinger’s live show is solid. Besides, if you don’t go see them now, at this rate they won’t be back until some time around 2015.

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