One of the most crushing lines off All Dog’s debut 2013 tape comes in the second track, “Love Song.” “I want you, and you want me / But I will fuck it up, just wait and see,” Maryn Jones sings, with an attitude that is heartbreaking in its brutal hesitancy and surrender. This is the sentiment that haunts many of All Dogs songs, perhaps most prominently on “Georgia” (“And I can’t say that I’ll change but you know I’ll stay the same / I don’t want to hurt no one but I don’t want to be alone”). The battle between love and responsibility, both to oneself and to another, is a hard one to win.
“That Kind of Girl,” the first single off the Columbus, Ohio foursome’s upcoming album, Kicking Every Day, acts as a sort of conclusion to both “Love Song” and “Georgia.” In those songs, burgeoning relationships were approached with caution, but here, an affair ends with the acknowledgement of a personal problem and self-prioritizing. I think every female-identifying individual can relate to being “that kind of girl” in some way. As Jones asks, “What does that mean?” I think the concept goes back in some ways to the idea of female hysteria – that a woman who experiences any sort of emotional intensity is unsound. Being “that kind of girl” is seemingly the main cause of the end of the relationship central to the song. “If you’re wanting something else then that’s all you have to say,” Jones offers. “Not to hear my voice on the phone saying that I’m not ok / I am underneath the water kicking every day.” The conclusion (“I don’t wanna be the weight upon your shoulders when you wake / I don’t want to drag you under / Kicking every day”) is devastating. In “That Kind of Girl,” All Dogs explore similar themes as past songs, but this time with more urgent intensity than ever.
All Dogs’ Kicking Every Day is out August 28 on Salinas Records.
