Bark Your Head Off, Dog is, without question, Hop Alongs most dynamic and textured record yet. Self-produced and recorded at The Headroom in Philadelphia by Reinhart and Kyle Pulley, Bark Your Head Off, Dog features the familiar sounds that have always made the band allergic to genre: grunge, folk, punk, and power pop all appear, with inspiration from ELO to Elvis Costello to 70s girl group vocal arrangements. This time around, theyve added strings, more intricate rhythms, lush harmonies (featuring Thin Lips Chrissy Tashjian), along with a momentary visit with a vocoder. In more than one place, Mark Quinlan drums like hes at a disco with Built to Spill.

Most significantly, Bark Your Head Off, Dog shows the band at its strongest and most cohesive. Hop Along (which originally began as Quinlans solo project under the moniker Hop Along, Queen Ansleis) has never sounded so deliberate, so balanced. So strange to be shaped by such strange men is a line that repeats on more than one song on the album. Ive been thinking about that a lot. That I just deferred to men throughout my life, Quinlan says. But by thinking youre powerless, youre really robbing yourself. Im at a point in my life where Im saying instead, Well, what can I do?