Like your riffs fuzzed to the max with a crunchy circular dynamic, your rhythms solid busy and tight and your vocals tinged with a crackled raw edge? Well if you do then maybe you should lend an ear to "Pilot The Dune" the self-titled debut from, you guessed it....Pilot The Dune. Pilot The Dune hail from Norwich, UK, a city only a hop skip and a jump away from the East Anglian coast line where it is possible to find actual dunes, something that might go some way to explaining why a band from the lower middle East of England have a sound so close to that once birthed in the deserts of 90's era California.
The first thing that comes to mind when the initial riff of first song "El Machina" hits the ear is its similarity to Deep Purple MK III's "Mistreated" however you should never judge a track by its intro and its not long before Pilot The Dune jettison their Purple-esque intro and jump two footed into stoner/desert territory with fuzz pedals dialled to max and rhythms in groove mode, the vocal decorating this onslaught possessing a more than pleasing cracked and throaty resonance. "Zub" is up next its easy on the ear vocal melody is backed up by one of those repetitive circular refrains that are almost impossible ever to get out of your head, Desert Psychlist is reminded a little of Welsh weedsters Dope Smoker while listening to this which is a big tick in its favour. Pilot The Dune plump for some good old school hard rock with next song "Modern Slave", the band still keeping one foot in the sandy soil of desert rock but dialling the fuzz back to allow the guitars a little more crunch and the drums room to swing, a trick they repeat to some extent on "Interstellar" only here the fuzz fights back a little harder. There is an essence of eastern exotica to be found in the guitar work for the following "Suntide" and it gives the song an almost proggish feel, albeit slightly diffused by the furiosity of its rhythms and the throaty rawness of its vocal attack. Urban sleazy post-grunginess is the name of the game on "Thruvia" while "It's Not You" finds the band experimenting with elements of heavy psych and grungy blues and coming up winners all round. For their last two songs, "Druid's Feet" and "Space Junk" return to what they do best and what they do best is jam heavy rhythmic stoner grooves decorated in circular refrains and wild eyed throaty vocals, these two song being prime examples of that art.
Pilot The Dune have, with their self-titled debut, taken aspects of 90's desert/stoner rock and 80's grunge/alt-metal and smashed them together with aspects of present day doom and psych to come up with something that is representative of each yet despite that still very much has its own thing going down.
Check 'em out ....
Cheers for the review of our album man🙏.
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