It’s no stretch to say Dilly Dally’s debut full-length is highly anticipated, especially in local circles. Over the past year, every cool outlet in the blogosphere has been fawning over the flagship band for Toronto’s noisy outsider label, Buzz Records. Needless to say, the hype has reached a dangerous level.
Which makes it oh so sweet that Sore delivers. Opener Desire announces itself with building feedback (the calm), and then Katie Monks’s vicious growl kicks in with a count to bring in the first guitar blast (the storm). The tried-and-true 90s loud-quiet-loud formula is a staple throughout the record, yet things always sound contemporary. The band create something new from their influences, mixing flannel-clad pop with guitar mayhem on The Touch and Witch Man, while Next Gold has slurred-words immediacy.
After the pummelling provided by the band’s thick and thrashy guitars, they U-turn into closer Burned By The Cold, an atmospheric, piano-driven heartbreaker, with Monks’s voice pushing and pulling between defeated melancholy and helpless anger. It proves Dilly Dally are more than just noisemakers.
Top track: Burned By The Cold
Dilly Dally play the Horseshoe November 27.
