In a musical landscape that thrives on reinvention, UniversalDice’s Misfit Memoirs comes across as both refreshingly grounded and intriguingly unclassifiable. The band, helmed by Gerry Dantone, crafts a 14-track album that veers between heartfelt simplicity and sprawling complexity, offering up slices of life that are alternately raw, tender, and jagged.
The album opens with “My Heart is in Your Hands,” a straightforward ode to love that could easily slip into formulaic territory—except it doesn’t. The song culminates in a blazing, three-guitar solo that carries the listener somewhere between jubilation and nostalgia. It’s as if Dantone is saying, “You know how this love story ends, but here’s something new for the journey.”
From there, the band dives into “Once Upon a Time,” which, in contrast, feels personal and fragmented—stories within stories. It’s a layered track, with additional drums by Vin Crici that keep things tight while Dantone, in his multi-instrumentalist glory, creates a narrative both relatable and elusive. These are tales you’ve heard before, but told with a conversational flair that’s distinctly UniversalDice.
“Kiss Me” shifts into more complex emotional terrain. It’s a love song, sure, but it’s also about loss and impermanence. The track features a standout piano arrangement by Crici and some tastefully distorted reverse guitar parts that leave you feeling both comforted and unsettled. As the album progresses, love is neither simple nor static; it’s a complicated, sometimes fleeting force.
Then comes the five-song arc that begins with “I’m Not Me Anymore.” In this section, life becomes increasingly hard to pin down. The wah-wah guitar in this track hints at a playful energy, but the lyrics suggest an existential unraveling. This arc hits its emotional crescendo in “Curse,” a poignant commentary on generational tension. Dantone’s understated vocal delivery contrasts with the more forceful instrumentation, creating an emotional dissonance that’s both arresting and relatable.
Things take a darker turn with “I Hate You,” a blistering confessional that doesn’t mince words. The line “’Cause you hate me…” comes in hot, and Dantone’s “everything” approach to the track gives it an isolated intensity, as if the song itself is caught in a personal spiral.
The inevitable redemption follows with “Forgive Me,” featuring Bob Barcus on lead guitar, adding a softer, more reflective touch. It’s a song about reconsideration, repentance, and, maybe, peace—if only for a moment. This reprieve is short-lived, though, as “Stay” reminds us that life’s complexities are never fully resolved. Yet, the song is imbued with a warmth, inviting the listener to linger, if only for a while.
Perhaps the album’s most curious moment comes in “Delectable,” a track that, according to the band, came to Dantone via a dream from Paul McCartney. It’s a whimsical anecdote for a song that feels airy yet grounded, like it belongs both in a stadium and a coffeehouse. The Ebow guitar adds a surreal, floating quality to a song that manages to blend dreamscape and rock anthem in equal measure.
In “Surrounded” and “A Very Small Man,” UniversalDice returns to a familiar thematic mix of personal vignettes and broader social commentary, each track carried by Dantone’s confident instrumentation and intimate lyrics. The album closes with “Forgot to Say,” a quiet, almost whispered denouement. Barcus’s acoustic guitar and Dantone’s vocals feel like a resolution—not to a story, but to a feeling, leaving you with a sense of closure, even if the journey itself remains open-ended.
Misfit Memoirs succeeds in being exactly what UniversalDice promises: a classic indie rock album that defies trends and categories, offering something that feels timeless and, at the same time, wholly unexpected. This isn’t the album you were looking for—it’s the one you didn’t know you needed.
Cleopatra Patel