Album Premiere: Dome Sweet Dome/Nobody Cares Volume 1 – Between Two Horse Pikes (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

I remember having a great time trying to unpick the sonic strands that made up Cupcakes and Taffy back in (checks notes) mid-2022; wow, is it really that long ago that they last crossed my path? Well, with the arrival of Dome Sweet Dome/Nobody Cares Volume 1, it becomes apparent right from the start that the excellently named Between Two Horse Pikes haven’t lost any of their zest for sonic adventure.

Eleven songs, eleven mixes and matches and melds and merging of sound and style, genre and scene, the eclectic nature of which is laid out for all to hear in just the opening brace of songs. If “Folded” is a strange alt-rock piece formed from an array of raw guitars and indie salvos, “Paula, Paula,” which follows, wanders between spacious indie-folk delicacy and squalling grunge weight, atmosphere and shimmering, shoegazing arrays. That’s a lot to fit in just nine minutes.

But the adventure continues. “Five Mile Dagger” builds a bridge between the heavy grind of The Pixies and the more ethereal washes of Ride. “Commit Suicide” is a tsunami of fractured soundscapes, sub-metal explosions, and deliberate false musical starts. It is a masterclass in anticipation and does not give the listener what they expect, instead keeping them guessing and on the edge of their seats. And “Parkinson’s Disease” is a kaleidoscopic pattern of psychedelic ambient forces coming together like oil and water, always moving, never quite working in harmony…well, not what the man in the street would call harmony; I fully understand that such mixing of sounds is perfectly harmonious within the wonderfully off-kilter sonic world of Between Two Horse Pikes.

This seems to be an album of two distinct parts, well, not perhaps that distinct as the line between the predominantly eclectic song structures of the first half and the more dreamlike and drifting instrumentals that take us out do blur a bit at their point of demarcation, one always seeming to affect and influence the other. But, by and large, there are two broad sonic styles at work, hence the dual title, I guess.

As with the previous album, it is a mercurial and occasionally slightly mad experience, but I mean that only in the sense that madness is the opposite of conformity, comfort zones, and predictability. Madness in the sense of Kerouac’s famous description of people who “burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

If you can imagine the sort of people he was describing, then this is the music they would make.