''Happiness'' is the third studio album by American

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

band

Dance Gavin Dance Dance Gavin Dance is an American rock band from Sacramento, California, formed in 2005. The band currently consists of vocalists Jon Mess and Tilian Pearson, lead guitarist Will Swan, rhythm guitarist Andrew Wells, and drummer Matthew Mingus. ...

, released on June 9, 2009, on Rise Records. It is the band's second consecutive, and final, studio album to feature

Kurt Travis Kurt Travis (born January 16, 1987) is an American singer, musician, and songwriter from Sacramento, California. He is currently part of the post-hardcore bands Royal Coda and Push Over and the math rock duo Gold Necklace, and was formerly a ...

on clean vocals and Zachary Garren on guitar, and is their only studio album to not feature screaming vocalist Jon Mess, who left the group in 2008 before returning in 2010. It is also the band's only studio album to feature bass guitarist Jason Ellis and is their only release to feature screaming vocals from lead guitarist Will Swan. The album serves as a follow-up to the group's sophomore studio album, ''

'' (2008) and was produced by

Kris Crummett Kris Crummett is an American record producer and owner of the Interlace Audio in Portland, Oregon. Crummett started recording in 2002. He has worked with many notable indie music record labels, including Rise Records, Epitaph Records, Fearless Re ...

, who recorded the album with the band in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

at Interlace Audio Recording Studio in February 2009. Following its release, the album peaked at No. 145 on the ''Billboard'' 200 and No. 30 on the

Top Independent Albums The Independent Albums chart (previously titled Top Independent Albums) ranks the highest-selling independent music albums and extended plays (EPs) in the United States, as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published weekly by ''Billboard'' magaz ...

chart.

Billboard.com ''Billboard'' (stylized as ''billboard'') is an American music and entertainment magazine published weekly by Penske Media Corporation. The magazine provides music charts, news, video, opinion, reviews, events, and style related to the music ...

Retrieved 2009-08-28 The album sees a significant departure from the group's previous traditional

post-hardcore Post-hardcore is a punk rock music genre that maintains the aggression and intensity of hardcore punk but emphasizes a greater degree of creative expression. It was initially inspired by post-punk and noise rock. Like post-punk, the term has been ...

and

emo Emo is a rock music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of and hardcore punk from the Washington D.C. hardcore punk scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore and pioneered b ...

sound, venturing into

funk rock Funk rock is a fusion genre that mixes elements of funk and rock. James Brown and others declared that Little Richard and his mid-1950s road band, The Upsetters, were the first to put the funk in the rock and roll beat, with a biographer sta ...

and

experimental rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...

. ''Happiness'' was supported by its lead single, "Don't Tell Dave", which was released on May 28, 2009. The second single, "NASA", was released on May 31. A music video for the album's third single, "Tree Village", was released on August 15, 2009. The band toured briefly in support of the album, touring North America, Europe, and Australia. On November 1, 2019, the band released an instrumental version of the album to

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

and digital download platforms.

Background and recording

Dance Gavin Dance announced that they went into the studio with

to record ''Happiness'' on February 14, 2009. On April 10, the group released the album artwork and a recording of the new song "Tree Village" onto their MySpace profile. On May 28, "Don't Tell Dave" was also added to their MySpace page with "NASA" being posted soon after on May 31.

Release

The album was released to digital retailers and physically on June 9, 2009. Nowadays, physical releases of ''Happiness'' are scarce, with recent represses selling out in minutes. Few are available online, with a small number being found on sites such as

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

, with prices often pushing the two hundred U.S. dollar mark. However, the CD of the album is available on Rise Records' website. It is their second release thus far to provide lyrics for each song in the CD booklet ('' Whatever I Say Is Royal Ocean'' being the first).

Track listing

Personnel

;Dance Gavin Dance *

– clean vocals * Will Swan – guitar, unclean vocals, rapping (on track 10) *Zachary Garren – guitar *Jason Ellis – bass *Matt Mingus – drums, percussion ;Additional personnel *

- production, engineering mixing, mastering * Neil Engle - engineering * Jeff Bond - engineering * Mattias Adolfsson - artwork

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Happiness (Dance Gavin Dance Album) 2009 albums Dance Gavin Dance albums Rise Records albums Albums produced by Kris Crummett