Heat Dust : " s/t"

It's October so I am more in the mood to give some of these post-punk revivalist bands a shot in hopes of finding some goth. Its like digging for gold. These guys are on the Flenser, who have  a good track record of creative artists on their roster so this sealed the deal . What I found with this band is while They have the dark Bauhaus meets Joy Division guitar tone, but everything else is pretty much just punk. The punk build even more momentum on the second song and we are tying up our Doc Martens at this point. Things finally get a little moody and make me wanna reach for my pumpkin spice latte on "Warming My Hands" . The chorus has a hook to it and they have convinced me they know how to write a song, so the bar is raised for these guys a little. Then we are back to punk. "I Think About It Every Day" finds the band in a middle ground between punk and something a little darker as they speed along , but in a tenser manner than most of their more punk songs.

They stay in this middle ground though lean more towards punk as the album progresses."Anybody" has a more pounding drive to it and the vocals fall more toward the back ground. The vocals are a little more melodic but sung in an Iceage like mumble. They take a more deliberate pace on "Something For Nothing" and while the vocals are more punk at least the song is not being rushed past me. They even make on a more rock n roll swagger. I expected a guitar solo to come that never shows so I guess they are just too cool for those. They get a little moodier for the instrumental " Do You Think About it ?"Then the close out the album by going back to their more aggressive take on post-punk with heavy emphasis on the punk. At time some of the places the guitars go remind me of Hotwatermusic.

They have their own thing going on, but I said this in a review of the band Vastum in regards to death metal and I think it applies here in regard to punk, this genre of music that they work well within has a fairly low ceiling when it comes to dynamics and room for melodic experimentation so right from the start they had that going against them, where actual post-punk, death-rock or goth has more room for dynamic layers and thus I find it a more compelling listen so I'll give these guys a 7, but if you like straight up punk with a darker edge and don't ask much more from it go ahead and around it up a point.