Dialects Dominate Nottingham’s Rock City Basement
Published
With the doors opening over an hour before the Glaswegian quartet took to the stage, the crowd was sparse and it was looking disappointing for the guys, their first time in Nottingham playing to a half empty room was somewhat similar to the hordes of amateur teenage bands drifting around the scene, trying to make a break for themselves despite having few redeeming qualities.
Dialects have a sound that is refreshing in a place that is full of artists churning out tracks that are like chewed up and spat out reproductions of one another. They are very much an experimental post-rock math metal instrumental band that produce an eruption of noise will hit you hard. With an onstage presence that outshone headline band Sólstafir by far.
As soon as they appeared on stage, the room seemed to fill up and you could see that the crowd were curious at what the band had to offer, they were so diverse from the band almost the entirety of the venue come to see. In a room full of black Damnation t-shirts and Sólsafir merch, it seemed like it would be a tough crowd to please, especially when they differ so greatly from a band that played one of the UK’s largest indoor metal festivals last year.
Turning their backs away from a typical vocal lead band, that is known to draw in a large fan base, Dialects let a wild mix of riffs, a tight rhythm section teamed with a strong bass to do the talking. They owned the stage, playing confidently in a totally foreign room. You could see as their set went on more and more people in the room were tuning into their psychedelic post rock/math metal vibes that was pouring from the Basement’s sound-system that was working in double time, a venue not very familiar to such a deafening, powerful sound emanating from four bearded Scotsmen.
Dialects experiment with odd time signatures and explore the use of dynamics in such a way that hooks you in and narrates an impressive story within each track, leaving the hairs on the back of your neck hairs standing on end and leaving your senses working in overdrive.
Whilst their set was only around half an hour long they seemed to get through a strong array of tracks. Opening with “Lorentzian” and “Nibiru”, you can immediately understand the interests of the band, delving deep into maths and science theory neither of which dissimilar from the tracks on their debut EP, LTKLTL (Let The Kids Light These Lanterns), that tells an unashamed cosmic narrative, “A couple who travel from Utopia in another universe to arrive in our world”. Whilst they only played two tracks from their EP, “Restless Earth” and “Unknown Orbit”, the instrumental quartet show a strong potential in dominating the alternative music scene in the future.
At the end of their set lead guitarist Conor Anderson thanked the now full room for sticking with them for their set, echoed by the rest of the band, all seeming overwhelmed and exhausted from the thirty minutes of pure relentless sound they produced. The room was left ringing out in a now deafening silence, it was an eerie end to such a high energy appearance.
Hailing from Glasgow and sharing a hometown with post rocker Mogwai and Primal Scream, the guys are in good stead for greatness. Dialects are definitely a band to watch out for in the future.
For more information on Dialects click here
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Words by Rhianna Sexton
