New Music of the Day : XIII – (Here’s to) The Ghosts of the Past – Dot Dash (The Beautiful Music) reviewed by Dave Franklin

One of the things about running a new music review site is that you have no control over what you get sent. Double-edged sword? Maybe. But for every 10 Artic Monkeys wannabes who think that they can take over the world with a pair of skinny jeans and a working knowledge of A minor, for every 20 pop outfits with their complicated hairstyles and their forgettable tunes that they should have forgotten to write, a real gem turns up. I had it recently with Field Mouse and it’s happened again with (Here’s to) The Ghosts of The Past from Washington DC based Dot Dash.

 Play (Here’s to) The Ghosts of the Past

From the frantic build, the kick in from the rhythm section, the quickly arrived at chorus…everything about it made me smile, then made me nostalgic and finally made me dance around the room. Channelling the sounds of a hazy post-punk mid eighties summer, the sound of Sarah Records, west coast jangle guitar, driving bass lines that are both hooky and indeed Hooky plus an overall vibe that puts me in mind of the massively underrated Antipodean band The Church (vocally) and at the same time Mega City Four (musically).

The again there are good reasons why they should fall so naturally into such a sound, why they would evoke the sound of those classic bands…some of the band were in them. A past history of the Dot Dash incumbents shows that they have served time in Julie Ocean and Swervedriver as well as hardcore units such as Minor Threat and Youth Brigade, an impressive CV to be sure.

If lead single’s main purpose is to make you check out the rest of the album then this has done its job in spades and a purchase of Half-Remembered Dream, their third and latest long player, is just around the corner.