DMBQ – The Essential Sounds From The Far East / 2005 Estrus Records / http://www.dmbq.net / http://www.estrus.com / Reviewed 13 March 2005
DMBQ plays a noisy brand of renaissance-rock that seems to me to be a mixture of equal parts The Strokes and Refused. Each track has the same brutal, iconic guitar riffs mixing with a set of vocals (by Shinji) that put a seventies overtone onto the track. The guitar work on the average DMBQ track seems disjointed; present are the load, noisy and shrill guitar riffs but they seem to be just placed in the track willy-nilly. As a result, the chaos on the track almost seems too much to bear. The exciting thing about DMBQ’s music is the fact that each track supports a long runtime while still having a quick feel to it. Thus, a track like “Nowhere” spins to conclusion at about four and a half minutes, but the song only feels like it has a two minute runtime. This is because DMBQ involves each one of their listeners to the point that time begins to fly – by the time one realizes it, the disc is almost half-way over.
In this brand of music, the vocals are not stand-along, but they are rather like another form of instrument. Shinji’s vocals may contain English lyrics, but the effect is to not convey a story with them. Thus, while the music may be working in a paradigm dominant in the seventies, DMBQ has extended what bands like Led Zepplin did to the logical extreme. Song structure is shucked for a purely hedonistic sound, replete with full and lush guitar lines mixing well with ropy bass lines and strong drumming. However, there are some rough spots on “The Essential Sounds”, many of which concern the mid-point of the disc, “Dm”. “Dm” uses an “underwater” effect on Shinji’s vocals, and the instrumentation on the track loses even more semblance of arrangement even as the guitar and drum tries to hold the track together.
The extended length of “Dm” also allows the band to experiment more with their normal form. While this does manifest itself in solid guitar lines at times, it also shows up a band that is unable to stop the bareness of the track from being a major force in “Dm”. DMBQ has the spirit of arena and stoner rock deep within every member’s heart, and while they can ape sound the sound fairly successfully, I wonder if this imitation might be better served if a little more of the band’s own feelings and desires were showcased, instead of such a rapid grasp onto the past.
Top Tracks: Nothing, Taste
Rating: 5.6/10