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Album Review

Dignan Porch
Observatory Faux Discx

Article written by Ged M - Aug 4, 2014

For their third album, Dignan Porch have moved from hip New York label to hip Brighton outfit, from Captured Tracks to Faux Discx, and their record breathes coolness and confidence. Mostly home-recorded in a flat above a South London carpet emporium, they’ve turned out accomplished lo-fi psych- rock with a driven sound but also a melancholic edge.

They dare to mix it up, from elemental rock’n’roll to full-blown psych. ‘Deep Deep Problem’ has an early Buddy Holly twang and ‘Got To Fly’ a noisy, ramshackle rockabilly throb while ‘Between the Trees’ takes a leaf from the White Stripes and produces simple and melodic rock’n’roll rhythms. Meanwhile ‘Harshed’ is warped 60s psychedelia with all sorts of fast/slow complications and the chiming, wailing ‘Swing By’ is an immersive and psychically headfucking experience.

Things get a little sad and melancholy with ‘Dinner Tray’, though it has some of the sweetest Flying Nun style hooks, but the album also features the most uplifting, complex and eerily catchy song that the Dignans ever wrote in ‘No Lies’. It has a relentless, haunting keyboard riff that catherine-wheels into a stunning chorus and I think it just supplanted ‘Surge’ as my favourite Porch tune ever.

The record has been brilliantly designed but all the artwork would count for nothing if the music wasn’t to the same high standard. With Observatory, though, Dignan Porch have delivered their third and finest set of songs, the sort of reputation-founding record that ought to find space in the collections, virtual or physical, of anyone who claims to love music.

Links:
http://dignanporch.com/
http://fauxdiscx.bandcamp.com/album/observatory
https://www.facebook.com/dignanporch