Just a few years ago, Canadian rockers and local darlings The Dirty Nil won their first Juno Award for Breakthrough Group. And there was no band more deserving. They exude the essence of a garage band, still writing and making music in a room that is entirely too loud, jamming and seeing what sticks.
The best of both old and new rock and roll, The Dirty Nil sticks to their guns and listens to no one besides each other. It’s a mentality they have stood firm with since their formation and even after accolades like Juno, they aren’t straying from. Their forthcoming album “Fuck Art” out tomorrow, is testament to that, hailing to metal and rock gods like Slayer, Motorhead and Metallica. And though listeners will undoubtedly hear those influences, if looking for it, The Dirty Nil presents a heavier music with a balanced presentation including pop-punk elements and vulnerable lyrics. But they never forget to have a good time and tear it up along the way.
Lead single, “Doom Boy” is their best effort at showing both sides of themselves in one epic song about listening to Slayer with friends in a minivan. And of course, they slipped as many Slayer nuances into the song as humanly possible, with quirky verses, thrashy riffs and percussion. And the group took the thrashy rally song further accompanying it with a video that offered the band their own 80s glam dream of destroying a van.
“We did have a conversation on how many Slayer moves we could throw into one song,” frontman Luke Bentham. But like any great rock band, they have somewhat of a more serious side, because ballads are a must. “Done with Drugs” is less of your traditional “Every Rose Has Its thorn” or “Fade to Black” ballad, but it’s the closest The Dirty Nil could get. The song mulls over important topics both relevant to the guys and society, like social media and drug use in your twenties. The song that screams, ‘I’m done with drugs, I hope they’re done with me,’ renders an equally honest and satirical portrait of an experience Bentham views as rather personal.
Accompanying The Dirty Nil’s anthemic nature on “Doom Boy,” “Done with Drugs” is the thrashiest “Ride or Die.” With lyrics inspired by Bonnie and Clyde, the song is the heaviest offering on Fuck Art. The sound is the most authentic portrayal of what comes from the band’s old-school writing approach. Playing guitar through blaringly loud amps in a tiny room together is the only way the band knows and wants to create music. And it’s almost a dying art, with so many artists stockpiling music for later and writing with a producer, which Bentham argues often leads to less-than music.
Having a producer hold your hand and make your stuff all leads to garbage music that will all be fucking forgotten, in my opinion, Bentham said. “No offense to our peers and friends that conduct their operations in that way. I think that the only way to really be a proper, really good rock and roll band is playing all the time. And that’s the only way where you really find and create moments together.”
The Dirty Nil has of course experienced the same pressure from industry folks to churn out hits and work with producers, but always said no, for a lack of better words. They would rather have complete creative control and do it their way. And jamming in a room together only utilizing a sound engineer was the way to go. But it’s not without disagreement. Happy Nil Year’s Day y’all! The time has finally come, ‘Fuck Art’ has been unleashed into the wild. ‘Fuck Art’ is about dreams, revenge, joy and death and it’s our purest glimpse of truth and beauty. We hope you love it as much as we do, please enjoy at maximum volume, and as always, much luv and hail hail rock n roll!
The Fat Angel Sings 