Dot Dash’s 2018 LP ‘Proto Retro’ is easily the best of their career. For the prolific band, the album very much presents a turning point: they’ve dispensed with the punkier elements and Mod based experiments. Instead, ‘Proto Retro’ concentrates on the band’s power pop interests.
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Get ‘Possessed’ by Alien Sex Fiend this October!
It’s been eight years since their last album, but veteran goth/noise rockers Alien Sex Fiend are back. They’re ready to assault the world once more and will unleash a new album ‘Possessed’ this coming October.
DOT DASH – Proto Retro
Washington based power pop combo Dot Dash are very prolific for a DIY band. Not necessarily on a Guided By Voices scale, but they’ve released six albums over a seven year stretch and gained some very positive support across the net in the process. Some of their earlier works can sound a little ragged and mixed stylistic choices could sometimes make the band seem impulsive, but when on form, it’s always been possible to hear their post-punk and power pop influences shining through the budgetary constraints.
2018’s ‘Proto Retro’ absolutely blows previous efforts out of the water. With a budget that would suit many of the power pop bands of the early 80s – Shoes, Automatics, Off Broadway et al – Dot Dash now sound like a band full of confidence. Along with the vastly improved audio comes vastly improved songs and in material like ‘Fast Parade’ – a three minute belter with the kind of ringing guitars a thousand Big Star wannabes would kill for – they’re a band ready to reach out to a bigger audience.
IDAHO GREEN – Rancher Bones EP
Montana’s Idaho Green are a band not so much shrouded in mystery as cloaked within the obsurd. Their list of band members is obviously fabricated and their band bio partly lifted from the legend of Lynyrd Skynrd. Scraping below the surface, though, they’re not related to Steve Gaines or Ronnie Van Zant; they’re still very much alive and have been active in one form or another since 2008. They’ve been releasing material since 2012 and the ‘Rancher Bones’ EP is their sixth release and despite only being short, it shows more scope and invention than before and is certainly more varied than 2016’s ‘Fuck Yeah…We’re Idaho Green’.
Listen to the new single by Darkwing
Brooklyn’s Darkwing make a huge sound. It isn’t one that’s easily pigeonholed: some of the vocals draw influence from 80s goth bands like Bauhaus with their echoing presence, but they aren’t a goth band. The drums rattle at speed like they’re driving a solid piece of garage rock, but if you’re looking for something along the lines of The Hives or a DIY band signed to Brooklyn’s own King Pizza Records…just forget it.