Newfoundland duo The Duds have dropped their debut album into the great big sea of music. Consisting of musical veterans and nine-year performance partners Melanie O’Brien and Phil Goodridge, the chemistry in the album is spectacularly evident.
“After performing as a duo for 9 years, we were so excited to make this album,” says O’Brien. “This album is about chasing something emphatically; a dream, love, redemption, yet also explores the idea of letting go. These songs have an ethereal element while also maintaining some very real, relatable truths.”
The six-track album contains a wide variety of styles, though the duo seem most comfortable with a visceral, emotional style, often headed by O’Brien’s mighty vocals whose very energy could rip a skyscraper from its foundation. “Our Time” and “One More Night” are the two most surefire examples, while “Mightier Than Me” opts for a quieter, gentler feel while still retaining some of the instrumental elements of the first two. “The Chase,” meanwhile, utilizes O’Brien’s powerful voice and combines it with a more experimental instrumental track.
Their sheer versatility is an enormous selling point as well, from the grittier, faster-paced “Send Me A Ghost” to “Keep This Up,” which employs an entirely different type of energy that could very well slot into a musical theatre playlist (appropriate, given Goodridge’s theatre background). They execute all of these different style with just as much grace as the last, and we’re left wondering if there’s anything these two can’t pull off together.
Between the two pieces that make up The Duds, they hold three MusicNL Award nominations, a MusicNL Award for Music Educator of the Year, and decades of experience working in the arts scene of Newfoundland. All of that talent positively oozes out of their debut album, so here’s hoping that these veterans can continue working together for another nine years or more.