★★★☆☆
This type of music (people call it ‘grunge’) is most powerful when it feels and sounds spontaneous, reckless and dirty.
From a production perspective, Dinosaur Pile-Up’s latest LP is too squeaky clean and sonically unchallenging to be as powerful as it needs to be. Yet from a songwriting standpoint, there are some surprising and powerful moments.
The album opens with the title track, built on a fat riff and complemented by its perfect tempo.
Later on, the verses of ‘Willow Tree’ and ‘Anxiety Trip’ suck the air out of the room only to violently blast it back in their huge choruses, and ‘Red And Purple’ goes headfirst into a searing breakdown.
However, perhaps an EP-length release would have been better – around the ninth track (‘Bad Penny’) it becomes noticeable that the extremely compressed wall of a million guitars has failed to diversify and the drums remain in the same mix position throughout the entire 12 tracks.
Live, these songs will absolutely go off, but on record they’re a little too plastic.
Dinosaur Pile-Up’sEleven Elevenis out now on Double Cross.
