This is another set from Dimmer, and it’s the high quality stuff, no change there. I first heard the opening track ‘Degrees Of Existence’ over a year ago, and it is still kicking the living shit out of my speakers at home on a regular basis. It soundtracked the best train ride I’ve ever had across the Southern Alps, on the Alpine Express. Go and see the song performed live by the band, it rules. Same with the rest of the new album.
I’ve heard a lot spoken about the Dimmer band over the years – about 15 years now – about Shayne’s shining path, or the number of musicians across the records helping to realise the vision, and where to next on the long winding road.
Robbie Yeats, Peter Jefferies, Gary Sullivan, Dino Karlis, Michael Prain.
Personally, I’ve always been intrigued with the way the drummers listed above have fused with the spiralling guitars and the half-whispered vocals. The long periods of music that drift along on a sinewy line of estranged looping effects and a ride cymbal. The power behind incredible tunes like ‘Dawn’s Coming In’, ‘Pacer’, ‘Come Here’, ‘Seed’, ‘I Believe You Are A Star’, ‘Don’t Even See Me’ and the new tracks ‘Degrees Of Existence’, ‘Nowhere I Want’, and ‘Cold Water’ is generated by the fine chaps on the traps. Thank goodness they have been as much a part of Dimmer’s sound as the man up front, or James and Kelly’s anchoring input on guitars and bass respectively.
I’m not wishing to make a big deal of ‘giving the drummer some’, but I think it’s one of the secrets behind the band and their ability to blow minds on a regular basis. Have a listen to the angelic track ‘Bless’ on this new album. The menace in ‘Cold Water’ originates in the tensioned percussion as much as from the polemic vocal takes. The aforementioned shit-kicking track ‘Degrees Of Existence’ is a glorious head-nodder because the drummer rules. Elsewhere, there’s a pretty tune called ‘Can’t Cut Through’ that has a familiar feel – it could be a track from another decade, another band. ‘Wrong Bus’ wigs out along a slinky theme, ‘Comfortable’ lays down on a pillow of marble pebbles, before heading out over the horizon on the good ship HMS Guitar Noodle.
Yep, this album is a fine addition to the Dimmer armada – sail on!
