Russell HughesDearly Beloved – Admission (Aporia Records)
Genre: Garage-punk
When whole albums are recorded in just two weeks the frantic energy put into the record can also cause it to fray at the seams, but for Dearly Beloved it all comes together in a seamless fusion of pent up rock ‘n roll spirit and 10 excellent tracks.
Admission is worth the price of entry and follows up on Enduro. The Canadians describe themselves as ‘chaos tempered with love and delivered with great fury’ and songs like I Tried To Leave encapsulated that spirit perfectly.
But the Dearly Beloved have more strings to their bow than just head banging garage punk as they slow things down with Who Wants To Know – all while keeping a jagged riff hanging in the background to remind listeners that they can break into something harder at any moment.
If that song lulls you into a full sense of security then Strobe-Dosing yanks you out of it like a sleeping drunkard being shocked awake with a bucket of water thrown over his head.
In some ways Admission is an album of two halves. The first section shows off the muscular side of the band while the second half is packed with more nuanced tracks and a different approach to their sound entirely.
Boxing Days and When You Had The Choice have a slight British Sea Power sound about them – the build ups are fantastically timed while the instruments give way slightly to more striped back, intelligent vocals.
That’s the thing about this band, they can sooth away your problems or they can smash them to tiny pieces with a sledgehammer. It’s a range of sound that can be tricky to produce when there are only two people in a group – and it’s a range of sound that shows a band at the top of their game.
RUSHONROCK RATED: 8/10 Love, Love, Love
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