Sometimes some music comes along that you give a quick once over and it so immediately catches your ear that you back off the other things you had planned to your day to just sit and listen some more. This sophomore release from Dystopian Future Movies was just such a thing, as my ears were grabbed as hard as a mother leading her kid home for being cheeky to her in public.
Listening back to their previous releases in their debut and EP, there’s definitely a continuation of their earlier sound, though this release has overall a bit less of the abrasive Noise take on a gloomy Doomgaze sound that seems to have been a bit more prevalent in their early EP, instead focusing a bit more on their melodic side from debut release ‘Time’. There are also definite post-pock tinges, as best experienced in mid-album track ‘All The Light’, with vocalist Caroline’s soft, ethereal style of singing adding that extra instrument that rounds off the musical experience that is the DFM sound, rather than the more in your face attitude that some others may have used that could have distracted from rather than added to the overall feel.
‘Black-Cloaked’ is the recently released second single from the album and one that showcases the less delicate side of their stylings on this album, with more of a hark back to the likes of ‘Ruptures’ on their EP, with the sonic landscape indicative of a further slight shift from their origin into something that the debut ‘Time’ had hinted at. ‘Kathleen’, the shortest track on the album, came about from album artwork, which was sourced at an abandoned Irish tuberculosis sanitarium, inspired by their explorations around the building and the digging into the history and in particular by the sad tale of a young victim there, echoing the both physical and mental distress the unfortunate girl must have suffered during that time.
It’s overall an excellent release and one that passes really quickly, where you don’t glance at the time as you go through but instead reach the end before you quite realise you’re there, showing an excellent writing style for a band so earlier in their formation. Musically the album is well mastered and everything fits perfectly with levels just right between bass, drums and a guitar that seems focused on creating a sense of unease in its approach, adding something that grants a more tangible feel to the album, rather than just being another noise amongst the others. They display a more than ample level of skill both individually and collectively, with each of the seven tracks feeling as though they fit to create more than the sum total of its parts and no filler included to just fatten out the length of the release.
- ‘Inviolate’is released today (Monday 2 March). You can get your copy HERE.
Dystopian Future Movies undertake a series of co-headline dates with Grave Lines:
- Thursday 12 March – Manchester, Star & Garter
- Friday 13 March – Nottingham, The Chameleon
- Saturday 14 March – Brighton, Green Door Store
- Sunday 15 March – Bristol, The Exchange
- Friday 15 May – Sheffield, Network,
- Saturday 16 May – Newcastle Upon Tyne, The Cluny
- Sunday 17 May – Glasgow, Nice ‘n’ Sleazy
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