by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
It's a great pleasure to share anything Dusk have touched with their old world grace and their visionary alt/country twang. The Wisconsin based band's self-titled full-length debut is nothing short of spectacular, a record that combines folk and country music with a slacker pop drawl and a dusty nuance of Americana storytelling. It sounds modern with a call-back to the easy going days of folk music's roots, a collection of songs that would sound as great being sung around a campfire as they do on your headphones walking through a crowded city. Dusk transport you from where you are to where you wish you were; the open air, endless freedom, and thick harmonies of a better life. With members that include Julia Blair (Holy Sheboygan), Amos Pitsch (Tenement), and Colin Wilde (Black Thumb) together with Ryley Crowe and Tyler Ditter, the band's weary soul and fried-country is truly refreshing in these anxious times, both rustic and radiant.
"Old Magnolia" and its eye-catching video, take the idea of Dusk's transportive powers and runs with it, bringing you as deep into the country mindset as possible. Traveling from red barns to monster trucks, bolo ties to bald eagles, this one plays up their surroundings with gorgeous images and the band's slow-dripped twang in impeccably lackadaisical form. The lyrics and the gorgeous vocal harmonies combine in a perfect way. There's a solitude to Crowe's delivery of the song's first verse, "Don't know where I'm going / and it's hard enough to find / the beauty between phases / when you live a lonesome life". As the band mosey into the brilliant refrain, "Old Magnolia / Won't your leaves calm down / Makes me wonder why I care," Blair's vocal harmonies light up the atmosphere, a call for a change in the seasons and moving on as time passes. As the pedal steel and violin begin to sweep the sentiments to full-tilt, the gang harmonies bring all the bliss of indie folk at its most sincere.
Dusk's self-titled album is out June 15th via Don Giovanni Records.