Dunes – Land of the Blind (Ripple Music)

Dunes are, in the Northern parlance, proper grafters.

Yes, they’re labelled ‘stoner rock’, but the boys are no slackers: the Newcastle trio have been putting in the hard yards since 2016, grabbing every opportunity with both hands – whether that’s a gig in a Wakefield boozer, or a stint at Malmö’s Fuzzfest.  

Their ethos has paid dividends. As we start 2025, the band are now embedded into the UK scene and in demand across the North Sea.

So it’s a good time for Dunes to be releasing their best work yet… and to see that work released on Californian label Ripple Music – home to doom and desert scene royalty like The Obsessed and Hermano.

Three albums in and the momentum is with them.

Dunes put down a marker

If there’s one song that epitomises the sheer weight behind Land Of The Blind – and the intriguing dynamics at play here – it’s Northern Scars. Featuring a spine-tingling monologue from Northumberland post-punker Nick Carter, it’s a tale of stifled lives and dragged-down dreams, born from the pain of Britain’s forgotten towns and a class system that never disappeared. A visceral piece, you won’t forget this harrowing doom-out in a hurry.

And that holds true for much of this record. It’s designed to sink in and stay there.

Tides is urgent and tense, with the kind of earworm chorus most of Dunes’ contemporaries would kill for.

Ditto the driving How Real Is Real and Cactus.

Hooks abound.

Frets sizzle.

Yet the emphasis is on reaching that conquering crescendo, rather than meandering around in a blissful, but ultimately unfulfilling, riffscape. 

It’s notable that the production (courtesy of drummer Nicky Watson) has been beefed up from the days of Gargoyle and Take Me To The Nasties. The choruses sound huge. John Davies’ guitars and Ade Huggins’ basswork have plenty of space to breathe, with the sparse/heavy contrast of Fields of Grey a particular highlight.

There’s also a natural flow to the album, as befits an opus born in a valley in rural Northumberland. Land Of The Blind was recorded in an old church – so perhaps there was some divine intervention at play in its creation.

The elevated songcraft, the surging confidence, the sense that the blood, sweat and tears have paid off… they all add up to one thing: this album could take Dunes further than they’ve ever been before.

Land Of The Blind