Dweller On The Threshold – “self-titled“
When I first heard Dweller on the Threshold’s self-titled debut album, I did what most people do, now, when they listen to music. Throw the record on. Leave the desk to do something else. The music started: a lone guitar, in an echo chamber. I came back. I stood in front of the computer. I listened.
I sat down. I listened some more. I listened to the entire record, front to back, then started it over and listened to it again.
The musical pedigree is certainly there. The ever-shifting membership features ex-members of death to tyrants, daniel striped tiger, and the toll, recorded by will killingsworth (ampere, orchid, bucketful of teeth, etc), all Western Massachusetts legends. Even the way the band is constructed – a rotating line-up of 8 friends scattered all over the East Coast – played it’s part, keeping the compositions varied, fresh, but unified throughout the whole of the album.
As for the music – it was brooding, but not overwhelming, gloomy but not depressing, lots of echoes and reverberations and a feeling of wide open spaces that reminded me more of the American midwest than any recent country or western music ever had. This is music for the Great Plains, or maybe Space, like the nebula featured on the album’s cover. Even the interplay of the instruments, loosely draped over one another, leisurely taking their time as they progress from minimalist and wistful to crushing, soaring, triumphant, contributes to that feeling of everything spreading out in front of you, a whole vista of emptiness opening up.
This record – their self-titled debut – is that rare record that truly forces you to sit down and engage, to accept the music for what it is and lose yourself in the expansive spaces it creates.
Available as a Pay-What-You-Want Download and in limited heavy black vinyl.
Super high-quality, heavy black vinyl. Only 200 copies available. Get it now.
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