Kris Pugh
In fact, it has hung around them so much that it’s probably not even a compliment anymore. The fact remains though that had the Canadian duo been born 10 years prior, we’d possibly be discussing them with a heroic like reverence.
Temporal mistiming aside, The Dirty Nil have been at the artistic forefront of rock n roll over the past decade. Blurring the increasingly complex line between tongue-in-cheek lyrics, hard riffs and bop choruses. Their fifth offering The Lash finds them in new territory though. Their satirism that ran through 2021’s Fuck Art has been toned down; the self-reflection found on 2023’s Free Rein to Passions has taken a back seat also. Instead, TDL use their latest offering to lift the curtain on how the thing they love harms them.
Purposefully paradoxical, The Lash refuses to use euphemisms or even metaphors to hide how Luke Bentham and Kyle Fisher adore and despise the landscape of the contemporary music industry. The thick bass line opening of ‘Rock N Roll Band’ quickly succumbs to the gun-against-your-head question “So you wanna be in a rock n roll band?” Before reminding you that “someone else is getting rich, not you” on its high octane chorus. Transparency appears to the aim though as Bentham expertly controls the refrain of “it’s what you gotta do”.
There’s even a morose undertone to the intimidating “This is Me Warning Ya” where Bentham and Fletcher strip everything you’ve known away and croon through 3 minutes of acoustic intervention. As with pretty much everything else the duo ever touch: it works, despite its left of field darkness.
Fear not though because ‘The Nil’s’ patented big time, arms aloft choruses still exist regardless of the record’s subject matter. ‘The Gallop of the Hound’s irresistible opening, ‘Do You Want Me’s head thumping tempo, ‘I Was A Henchman’s colossal vocal highs: The Lash delivers The Dirty Nil at their chest beating best throughout. Don’t worry, they definitely still love rock n roll.
Their frustration with the state of the genre they find themselves in is as prevalent as their status as rock n roll frontrunners. Even when they’re nihilistic, no one does it quite like The Nil.