Australian alternative/post-punk group dust, have announced details of their debut album Sky Is Falling, due October 10 via Kanine Records. The plunge for the ascendant post-punk outfit comes with awesome new single ‘Drawbacks’.
An extension of their formative debut style, ‘Drawbacks’ speeds across the desert, kicking up dust in its path: in an urgent, visceral squall of Gabe Stove’s riffing, Kye Cherry’s thundering drums, Liam Smith’s quick-fire basslines and Adam Ridgway’s woozy saxophone from gust to boiling point. It propels Justin Teale’s visceral stream of consciousness that shifts effortlessly between snarl and a howl of frustration and isolation, yet it offers glimpses of love and hope at the end of the road. Written wholly collaboratively, bleeding between anguish and desperation, it sounds like the edge of the world is hurtling into view, but we are ready to resist.
‘Drawbacks’ is about a feeling of studying other people to see how they find their way in the world.
Of the single, Justin explains “Drawbacks is about everyday feelings and thoughts that one experiences and leaning towards the ones that make you confused or in doubt. Feelings of shame and regret in social surroundings where you should feel comfortable, and you can’t shake off the head noise. I guess this song is a way of talking to myself in the same way I do with my thoughts without sounding pretentious. With the vocal delivery being so quick it almost portrays as a word vomit of the things that you say to yourself in your head. The people around me I love and am very inspired by, I look up to them and notice how they deal with social settings and communication, it almost feels like I’m studying them.”
Since first emerging in 2023 with their iteration of Australian post-punk on debut EP et cetera, etc, the group have continued to dominate. dust’s industrially shaped rock, endemic to their steel city origins, has taken them out of this world: major continental tours across Australia, the UK and US supporting formative influences Slowdive, Interpol, Bloc Party, Protomartyr and Militarie Gun, to stages with Hockey Dad, Trophy Eyes, DZ Deathrays, Floodlights, CLAMM, Adam Newling and more.
Industry alike clammer, word of mouth fever following them across un/official showcases at BIGSOUND, SXSW Austin and Sydney, The Great Escape to landing appearances at Laneway, Pitchfork Music Festival, London Calling – as Monster Children firmly put it, once you experience dust, you “will never be the same.” Indicative of their strength to straddle accessibility with newfound audiences to resonance with their musical heroes.
dust’s evolution continues on debut Sky Is Falling. Their sound, grounded in genre defiance and reinvention – shoegaze and electronic experimentalism side-by-side with elusive saxophone arrangements and abrasive guitar lines – is firmly rooted in melancholia and self-inquiry. Anarchic propulsion that denotes Geese to Double Virgo level extremities, with blissful nods to the classics, Sonic Youth, and My Bloody Valentine.
Their debut album, dust reveal, is a seminal moment. “On our first international tour, “the sky is falling” seemed to summarise the infinite and indefinite possibilities ahead. It was a phrase that kept surfacing between that formative moment on tour and the nihilistic lull after returning home to normal work and life. Accepting the unknown has made us more comfortable experimenting and taking risks in our songwriting. Truly immersing ourselves, we’ve spent hundreds of rehearsals and live shows crafting and conceptualising this album.”
Sky Is Falling springboards contemporaries in Moin and untitled (halo) – their fusion, slightly softer and refined while still raw and spontaneous. Diverse in approach and wholly sub-genre agnostic, at once nostalgic and forward-leaning. Reflective of their restless engagement with the social zeitgeist, slouching towards the future that they uneasily attempt to define. Enter: Sky Is Falling, dust’s attempt at making sense of it all.
dust – Sky Is Falling album artwork | Download image here
dust – Sky Is Falling album tracklisting
1. Drawbacks
2. Just Like Ice
3. Alastair
4. Two Dogs
5. Swamped
6. Restless
7. Aside
8. Fairy
9. Day Tight
10. In Reverie
Pre-save debut album Sky Is Falling HERE.
