Duster
In Dreams
Numero Group [2024]
“A dreamlike journey through space-rock atmospheres, In Dreams sees Duster refining their hypnotic sound with introspective depth and cosmic layers.”
Album Overview: Slowcore/space-rockers Duster received some much-deserved critical reappraisal when The Numero Group reissued their back catalogue in 2019, the same year they reunited and dropped their self-titled comeback album. Since then, the band has kept busy, releasing another album (2022’s excellent Together), an odds and sods collection (last year’s Remote Echoes), and some additional archival material such as the Moods, Modes 7-inch box. Now they’re back with their fifth proper full-length, In Dreams.
Musical Style: Musically In Dreams picks up right where the band’s last several releases left off. If you’re already a fan of their hypnotic, sometimes noisy, always “spacey” brand of introspective rock, then you know what to expect. The songs float along at a leisurely pace, with bleary waves of melodic guitar, effects, and feedback drifting in and out of the mix. The delicate vocals are usually somewhat buried beneath the lo-to-mid-fi production, but with Duster that’s always been a feature rather than a bug.
Evolution of Sound: Duster has carved out their own niche amongst the other so-called “slowcore” and “slacker rock” bands. Their sound is influenced by psychedelic rock and the German “kosmische” (cosmic) music of the 1970s (bands like Tangerine Dream, Cluster, and Klaus Schulze, among others). If they don’t stray very far from the blueprint they’ve established over the last two and a half decades, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially since their discography is relatively small to begin with.
Artists with Similar Fire: While their sound is more space-rock oriented than many of their peers, anyone who likes their rock a little hazier, slower, and more focused on mood than pop hooks should find plenty to appreciate on In Dreams. Bands like Bedhead, Pinback, Codiene, and even some of Acetone’s output are some possible points of comparison.
Pivotal Tracks: The album starts strong with opener “Quiet Eyes,” a shimmering slice of slow-but-steady space-rock that could sound at home on any of the band’s albums, including their classic 90s output. “No Feel” demonstrates the band’s ability to create a more tense, abrasive atmosphere, with some bubbling fuzzed-out bass and almost funky drum track supporting a slightly unsettling and repetitive guitar riff. That track leads into “Starting To Fall” and “Close to Home,” both of which nicely illustrate the band’s penchant for layering pretty guitars on top of dissonant noise and anxious vocal melodies. “Black Lace” switches things up slightly with its keyboard-heavy arrangement, while closer Anhedonia sends In Dreams off with a short coda that feels influenced by Brian Wilson’s more sweeping, mellow instrumentals on Beach Boys albums like Pet Sounds and Friends (filtered through the Duster sound, of course).
Lyrical Strength: As with most of Duster’s output, the lyrics can be hard to decipher since they’re typically buried beneath the layers of instrumentation. The snippets that do filter through the haze line up with the record’s title, with lots of sleep and dream imagery scattered amongst the album’s thirteen tracks. Like the music, though, there’s also an occasional sense of underlying dread at things collapsing and decaying, disintegrating into nothing as time stretches out into the ether.
DUSTER LINKS
Instagram | Bandcamp | Numero Group
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