We tip toe from genre to genre on this blog and after yesterday’s dunk in the sweetest of pop we are now turning to something with an altogether more gritty aesthetic. Don’t worry though, as tomorrow we’ll serve up yet more saccharine goodies, as The Recommender continues to dish up it’s chocolate box of treats.
Duologue are a five-piece from London who started appearing in one-off shows last year, such as December‘s showcase gig held by fellow blogger, Jamila Scott, from Fucking Dance/Cruel Rhythm. Since then they’ve released a self-titled EP, which arrived last month, existing of four songs.
The quintet consist of founding members Tim Digby-Bell (vocals) and Toby Leeming (live programming and beats), Seb Dilleyston (violinist), Toby Lee (guitars) and Ross Stone on bass. Their EP is a post-apocalyptic piece of work, beginning with their lead track Get Out While You Can, which shows off their ability to blend blues-rock guitar riffs with processed beats. It’s as doom-laden as Radiohead’s I Might Be Wrong, the Amnesiac album track with which it shares a genetic guitar hook.
There’s the kind of grainy vocals you heard in the Thunderdome band Alabama 3, with Digby-Bell’s voice burnt onto the track, which lightens one and half minutes in as they uncover the sublime chorus, where we find him offering you last-minute advice before the army of guitars stomps back in. It’s both powerful and beautiful, demonstrating their depth of songwriting skill.
Marching Orders is just as dystopian, blending the same urbanised blues with electronic productions and a punchy pace. It’s even more threatening if anything, swelling up into a barbed guitar finish. It leaves you exhausted, before a welcomed slower pace arrives with the third track, Racketeer. Just like the closer, Zeroes, it continues the ominous atmospherics, but this time they allow more of a dubstep beat to hold the focus over the rocking guitars, as Digby-Bells vocals lose their gravel.
This is perhaps the music Kasabian would make were they writing the soundtrack to the new Mad Max film. It’s a well-rounded 15 minutes, that feels cinematic and wide-ranging in it’s flow. Although the grit is never fully washed off, like most music that’s rinsed in the blues, it’s safe to say that this recommendation was perhaps picked from our range of darker chocolates, yet it still proves to taste as sweet as any others. (MB)
DUOLOGUE – GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN
DUOLOGUE – RACKETEER
DUOLOGUE – ZEROS
