Narrative Webs
So Many Dynamos (SMD) was a St. Louis Math Rock and Indie Rock band. Formed in 2002 and active until 2015, the band performed a farewell show in 2023. Their discography is somewhat thin, consisting of four albums, two EPs, and a single. Due to this and the fact that SMD is a rather small band, there are generally slim pickings when it comes to documentation of the band’s activity. This is true even for their most active years in the 00’s, with only eight professional reviews documented on Album of the Year across their three albums in that timeframe. Their 2015 album seems to lack any documentation at all outside of live recordings posted on YouTube. As such, sources will be utilized rather liberally and dredged up with very general search prompts, simply using the band’s name and occasionally specifying a certain album. For example, my most common searches were “so many dynamos”, “so many dynamos live”, and “so many dynamos ‘[Album Title]’”. DuckDuckGo, my search engine of choice, as well as the YouTube search feature will be the main channels for research due to their broad access to relevant webpages and general popularity, respectively. The portfolio will essentially act as an obituary for SMD, assessing their style and themes through contemporaneous articles to build a picture of how the band was viewed as they were active.
The central discourse communities for this topic include both in-genre fans and non-fan rock critics. Math Rock, Dance Rock, and Indie Rock fans make up the brunt of the fanbase for SMD, with a small portion of Synthpop fans included due to their 2015 album’s sharp difference in style from the rest of their discography. Due to the numerous comparisons of SMD to the short-lived DC band Dismemberment Plan (D-Plan), their fans will be considered as well. Some research will be done into D-Plan to help address this. The critical discourse communities are largely of smaller professional sites due to the band’s low popularity generally not reaching the wavelengths of larger publications. The exception to this is Pitchfork, which posted reviews of their second and third albums. The discourse surrounding SMD is largely around their similarities to D-Plan and a slump following a scathing review from the aforementioned Pitchfork.
As previously mentioned, the majority of sources for this portfolio come from professional reviews of the band’s first three albums. The two reviews for When I Explode come from Coke Machine Glow and AllMusic, with both firmly characterizing the band as something just north of a D-Plan tribute band. Coke Machine Glow’s review in particular has a lot to say, going into a lot of detail on their sound and exactly where any similarities lie. Flashlights only has a single review from Pitchfork, which acknowledges the D-Plan comparisons while tempering the discourse with some promises of the band finding their own sound. Still, the ‘Plan is explicitly ignored for the bulk of the article in order to review the album on its own merit. Overall, these reviews combine to form a narrative of a band that strongly resembled it’s biggest inspiration before gradually finding its itself through the years.
That narrative is complicated by the release of The Loud Wars, whose reviews are very polarized between either completely omitting (PopMatters, DIY, Alternative Press) or obsessing over SMD’s main inspirations (Loud and Quiet, Pitchfork). Despite that, they all mostly read like normal album reviews, with some general optimism towards SMD’s creative direction and mixed opinions on Stovall’s lyricism (though PopMatters is really the main negative voice on that matter). DIY’s review goes into the most detail, highlighting the album’s lyrical references and musical structure, making it among the most useful to reference. AltPress’s review is certainly the most optimistic about the band’s style, which could make it pair very nicely as a foil to the extreme cynicism of Pitchfork’s review by Paul Thompson. Thompson’s review is directly attributed by TheArtsSTL’s Bryan J. Sutter to be what nearly killed the band (more on that later). Though Sutter is far from unbiased (his article is absolutely crammed with praise for the band), Pitchfork had a lot of influence back then and SMD’s release schedule cratered post-Loud Wars, so I’m choosing to take the accusation seriously. Another thing driving me is the general poor quality of the review, which lacks many of the typical rhetorical and structural constants typical of an album review. Outside of reviews and great food for a scathing meta-criticism, SMD did do a promo interview before the album’s release. Wasoba in particular gives a great glimpse of the band’s creative outlook, and there actually isn’t very much promotional gunk to sort through here. Despite the optimism from both the band and many other reviews of the album, Pitchfork’s negative review seems to have caused SMD to nearly vanish for a good half-decade.
The post-Loud Wars state of the band is very poorly documented. The most I was able to find was a live version of a track off of Safe with Sound recorded in 2011, as well as a pair of articles from around when they did their farewell show in 2023. Regardless, the live recording (along with Safe with Sound itself) should be enough to give readers a good impression of the band’s drastic shift in sound. In terms of the farewell show, STLToday’s piece isn’t the most useful, as most of the questions Stovall was fed seemed to focus on their concert history and upcoming single. Still, that history can be very useful as a framing device, and he does give a few anecdotes about the state of the band starting out. TheArtsSTL has a more personal slant to their piece on the show, proudly disparaging Pitchfork before becoming something of a concert review. There’s some great documentation here, almost to the point of feeling play-by-play. Still, the article’s author goes a little too hard on the praise. A bit of filtering or tempering is going to have to be necessary in order to not make every quote feel like a brownnose. There are slim pickings overall, but there is still certainly enough here to give a decent picture of the band’s history and sharp post-Loud Wars shift in style.
Together, these sources help form a picture of how SMD was critically perceived when it was most active and also provide some contemporary views on the band as a whole. The pool of potential sources is much thinner than it would be for some more popular bands, requiring a wider net to find sources with. However, even within that small pool there is a good breadth of perspectives and opinions on SMD that will contribute to a well-rounded portfolio. There is plenty of input on just how much they draw from D-Plan at any point in their career, creating a narrative of a band slowly finding their own style past their initial inspiration. However, that narrative is heavily marred by Pitchfork’s review of The Loud Wars that seems to have led the band into a slump that pushed it even further away from D-Plan’s sound. That review also acts as a great subject to really rag on, as it fails to follow many critical conventions.