No one could accuse The Dials of hiding their influences. Their sound is a glorious mix of late 60s pop-psych, fuzzed up guitars and funky 70s style keyboard and synth lines. Yet this is no exercise in homage. What sets The Dials apart is both the standard of their songwriting and Joe Allenby and Rich Parrish’s perfectly judged vocal melodies.
The Dials have been familiar faces on the Brighton music scene since 2002, playing their own peculiar blend of psychedelia, surf, folk and jazz garage. Dermot Watson, Andy Taylor, Rich Parrish and Joe Allenby-Byrne sound like The Zombies, Funkadelic, Caravan and Miles Davis jamming at the UFO Club on a rainy September night.
Their eponymous debut album in 2007 showcased a bewilderingly eclectic collection of songs which somehow won the hearts of small pockets of radio DJs and listeners worldwide. Their showcase at NXNE in Toronto was described as “pure energy, hard-howling, Brit-infused honky-tonk”.
After famously requiring a fire crew of nine to rescue them from a bank vault in which they had become trapped whilst recording 2009’s “Companions of the Rosy Hours”, the band disintegrated in a whirlwind of passive aggression. Dermot and Andy shut themselves away and began writing the album which would become the critically-acclaimed “The End of the Pier” (2013). Self-produced and recorded all over Brighton with a rotating cast of musicians including Gordon Russell (Dr Feelgood), the album was eventually released with the current lineup established.
For the last three years, the Dials have been recording in UNKLE’s Toy Room studio in Brighton with Ben Thackeray (Patti Smith, Nick Cave, My Bloody Valentine, Gruff Rhys) producing. Featuring pump organs, mandolins, Moogs, mellotrons, pastoral folk and Bavarian waltzes, “That Was The Future” will be released on vinyl and CD on October 13th 2017.
Songs such as the genuinely funky “Cuckoo Stone” or the Spencer Davis Group style strut of “The Nark,” display an effortless cool. The band’s previous releases hinted at something great, but “That Was The Future” comes straight out and delivers it.
Lyric video for That Was The Future, taken from the album ‘That Was The Future’ by The Dials on Gear Discs.
The Fat Angel Sings 