It's Time to Write a Happy Album!!

One day (sometime during that faint memory that was 2008) David Macmichael of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia band The Danger Bees decided "it's time to write a happy album". With the drumming and production help of fellow Danger Bee James MacNeil, that's exactly what he did. And that's exactly what he called it.


It's Time To Write a Happy Album!! Track List:

1. Lolcats 4 Cats
2. Video Games!! (mp3)
3. Don't Call It Being Lonely Anymore (mp3)
4. Brad + I: Team Supercop
5. James + I's Big Night Out (mp3)
6. maybe there was just a suck portal in your life that hammer sank into accidentally, meanwhile ice would up on the center of a life sized turntable.
7. Parents Bass
8. The Open Mic
9. My Room Is The Greatest
10. A Conversation I Have With My Friend If, While Waiting in the ER for Antibiotics, A Wheelchair Becomes Unattended and She Can't Resist It's Call
11. Shark Guitar (Is a Pretty Good Axe)
12. Lunchtime II
13. I Know, Kitteh... I'm Hungry Too

Download It's Time to Write a Happy Album!! in full for FREE over at The Danger Bees' MySpace page.

Admittedly, I had my doubts about the Happy Album at first. Surely with cover art and track titles like that, it must be a novelty comedy album, right? Well, I've had it on my iPod for about a week now and I've listened to it an embarrassing number of times.

Totaling to just under twenty minutes, with none of the individual thirteen tracks exceeding two and a half minutes, Happy Album is the epitome of short and sweet. It's got lovably simple guitar and piano hooks that'll easily having you humming and toe tapping. And while it's pretty to listen to, the true genius lies in the anecdotal lyrics and the charmingly playful, mildly absurd narrative. It obviously stems from someone with a particular appreciation for the more mundane things in life. Take the lyrics from James and I's Big Night Out for example. "Some drunk jerk came and pushed past us then turned around and laughed at our matching glasses". Or how about the line in Video Games!! that says that Guitar Hero is "the very best thing to play. Just between you and me it's better than the real thing anyway. It's probably just because I'm really bad at guitar". I'd love to go on ruining the lyrical punchlines and discussing the precision of the album's subtle humour, cleverly strewn among melodically ear-pleasing tunes. I'd love to but I feel that I've talked for too long. I'm sure that the word count in this review has gone beyond the word count of the album.

Case in point, the Happy Album will make you happy. Surprise, surprise. Give it a couple of spins and I guarantee that you too will be singing bromantic odes to Brad, James and a cat named Fancy R2D2. Download it in full at no cost by visiting the Danger Bee's mySpace page, and catch them live in Toronto:

Feb. 3rd @ Poor Alex
Feb. 8th @ Drake Hotel
Feb. 9th @ The Central (with Ryan MacGrath)
Feb. 25h @ C'est What?
Mar. 17th @ The Supermarket