By Jonny Bakes
You know how the old saying goes “two’s company, three’s a crowd”, and while there are occasions this definitely applies, does it apply to bands? Let’s take a look at the latest release from DZ Deathrays to find out…
Formed in 2008, Shane Parsons and Simon Ridley found success launching their two-piece at house parties around Brisbane before going on to release two EPs, a hugely popular debut album (‘Bloodstreams’, winner of Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Album at the 2012 ARIA awards) and a further two studio albums round off their career to date. And whilst churning out this catalogue of music, the guys were always careful to ensure that they didn’t record anything that they couldn’t reproduce live together.
After releasing 2018s ‘Bloody Lovely’, the band found themselves reaching new heights, playing bigger venues and bagging headlines slots at festivals with their raucous live performances. After the relentless touring it was time to target that next big thing for the band, but now player three has entered the game in the form of Lachlan Ewbank and things are getting bigger. With three heads instead of two, there’s a whole new source of ideas and another mind to bounce ideas off which had ultimately led to the ambitious double album ‘Positive Rising’, part one of which will be dropping next week to whet the appetite for part two in due course…
The first thing I noticed is that there is a subtle change in style that runs throughout ‘Positive Rising’. A more chilled out vibe greets you at the start of this album with less of a focus on the distorted guitar sound of previous albums. Overall, I found the whole album very easy listening which wasn’t necessarily what I expected considering their previous efforts. That’s not to say that the album was slow, in fact quite the opposite, but the atmosphere does feel a tad more mellow at points.
It appears that the addition of a third member has led to the band becoming more comfortable with the use of synth pieces how that they have someone to play them live! Experimentation is definitely the order of the day here, with guest musicians even brought in to add some more flair to the album including Matt Caughthran (The Bronx) providing his distinctive scream to ‘Year of the Dog’. If you listen really carefully, you’ll also be able to hear some sax provided by Kirsty Tickle.
‘Still No Change’ is one of the more upbeat songs on the album, and almost has a bit of an Indie feel to it almost as if it’s arrived for the British indie scene about 15 years late. I found this one to be incredibly catchy though so it deserves a special mention, and I’m sure the subject is one that is familiar to everyone at some point in their lives!
That classic Australian topic of ‘Snakes’ makes an appearance towards the end of the album. Somehow this manages to start off being both upbeat and melancholic sounding at the same time by pairing quick tempo drumming with a slow guitar riff. Things get quicker and fuzzier as the song really picks up as it launches into the chorus with a pretty decent guitar solo to boot.
My final stand out song is ‘Nightmare Wrecker’ which I really enjoyed as this is a real bouncy number. Even though the chorus sounds a little bit like Morrissey in places (I make no secret about my disdain for Morrissey) this was not enough to stop me loving this song and I found myself coming back to this one repeatedly. There’s a real gritty doomy sounding breakdown hidden in this one too, which is definitely something to keep me interested.
So this is something a bit different and experimental from what you may be used to hearing from the DZ Deathrays. As I alluded to earlier, there are elements that made me think of mid-2000s indie which were completely unexpected and led to a slightly more chilled out vibe. This will definitely end up in my easy listening pile of albums and is definitely worth giving a go to see how the extra man adds to the DZ Deathrays sound.
- ‘Positive Rising: Part 1’ is released on 30 August. You can get your copy HERE.
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