The Dirty Nil – Master Volume
(Dine Alone
The Dirty Nil - Master Volume
Records)
Release Date: 14th
September 2018
It is here. The hotly anticipated
new album from Canadian trio the Dirty Nil is here and it is glorious. Fuelled
by passion, rage, intensity and no little sense of injustice, ‘Master Volume’
is as pithy as it is brutal and it is just what we need right now. The album
opens with ‘That’s What Heaven Feels Like’ a grunge’n’roll track with no
shortage of swagger, largely due to the huge guitars that wouldn’t be out of
place on compatriots Monster Truck’s latest album. ‘Bathed in Light’ strikes a
balance between Glam Rock and early Oasis but there’s a chorus that was born in
90s Seattle and left to raise itself with nothing but a pick and a bottle of
beer. It’s an intense start so there’s a sense of relief when ‘Pain of
Infinity’ opens with a slower beat but it turns out there’s no let-up in the
intensity, it’s a false dawn of screamed vocals and powerhouse drums.
Now, I need to point out that
‘Please, Please Me’ has no resemblance to the Beatles song but is instead a
Ramones instead boozy romp through a sweaty, punchy, rowdy crowd in pursuit of
the next beer. ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ finally slows things down but the passion in
the vocals skews the notes to a point where you can’t help but think of Cobain
and some of his pain-inspired performances – the lyric “I mean this in a nice
way….Fuck You!” is a particularly visceral moment in a song full of bile and
anger. ‘Always High’, by comparison, is a floaty little pop number…..just
kidding, there’s still that passion but this time there’s a sense of faded
nostalgia as if you’re driving past your old stomping ground and it’s been
gentrified beyond all recognition.
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| The Dirty Nil |
The fun continues on ‘Smoking Is
Magic’ which barrels along like AC/DC being driven to the bowling alley by Josh
Homme and Dave Grohl (and they’re already late) while ‘Super 8’ brings back
memories of listening to bands like the Ataris or Engine 88 back in the day.
Recent single ‘I Don’t Want That Phone Call’ is as driving and primal as ever
and the album peaks with ‘Evil Side’ which is twice the length of any other
song on this collection. This final number starts with an indie-rock shimmer
that is reminiscent of the Killers before sprawling in to an out of control
rock behemoth that just destroys everything that comes after or has gone before
– you can see why they left it until the end of the album (and, presumably,
set). The Dirty Nil are the natural progression of rock in the 21st
century. That is to say, they manage to wrangle ideas, messages and challenge
in to pithy three minute pop songs and then wrap them in distortion, anger,
blood-curdling vocals and honest emotion until you have to swallow it whole or
not at all. All or nothing, then, just the way they’d want it.
More information: https://www.facebook.com/thedirtynil/
Live Dates:
18th September – Indie88,
Toronto
25th September – The
Waterfront, Norwich
26th September – The
Flapper, Birmingham
27th September – The
Joiners, Southampton
28th September – Boston
Music Room, London
24th October – The
Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland
25th October – The
Underground, Detroit
26th October – Cobra
Lounge, Chicago
27th October – Freakfest,
Madison
28th October – First
Avenue & 7th St Entry, Minneapolis
30th October – The Good
Will, Winnipeg
31st October – Amigos,
Saskatoon
1st November – The Starlite
Room, Edmonton
2nd November –
Commonwealth Bar & Stage, Calgary
3rd November – The
Cabaret, Biltmore
4th November – Lucky Bar,
Victoria
6th November – Funhouse,
Seattle
7th November – Holocene,
Portland
10th November – The Echo,
Los Angeles
11th November – The Rebel
Lounge, Phoenix
13th November – Barracuda,
Austin
14th November – Three
Links, Deep Ellum
15th November – Santos
Bar, New Orleans
16th November – The
Masquerade, Atlanta
17th November – The End,
Nashville
18th November – Local 506, Chapel Hill
20th November – DC9,
Washington
21st November – Voltage
Lounge, Philadelphia
23rd November – Mercury
Lounge, New York
24th November – Middle
East Restaurant, Cambridge
26th November – L’Anti Bar
& Spectacles, Quebec
27th November –
L’Escogriffe Bar Spectacle, Montreal
28th November – Babylon
Nightclub, Ottawa
29th November – Wax
Nightclub, Kitchener
30th November – Rum
Runners, London
1st December – The Opera
House, Toronto