The Dodos

With a bigger profile comes a bigger band and a bigger producer. Of course, when you're a small indie act like San Francisco, CA's Dodos, bigger is relative. They've expanded into a trio with the addition of vibraphone player Keaton Snyder and the big gun behind the boards is Built to Spill's Phil Ek, who despite high-profile gigs working with Fleet Foxes and Band of Horses is probably still a ways off a six-figure session. Fleshing out the group's sound might have sounded like a good thing on paper but it's robbed the Dodos of their strongest asset: the sparse percussive sound that people fell in love with in the first place. It's still present in the mix, but while it was the focus on Visiter it's now buried underneath the guitar and vibraphone. In trying to move beyond their basic sound, the Dodos have given up what made them unique and now sound like every other band on the indie rock block.