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Dridge's newest full length, a return to their Gritual roots. Three tracks in forty-five minutes
Our take: Second album from this long-running Philadelphia band whose work has been championed by World Gone Mad Records. I can see why WGM is so into them, because Dridge is an interesting, original band. A pithy description of what’s happening on Dying Out might be “Amebix meets Electric Wizard,” but that warrants some unpacking. Dridge resembles Electric Wizard in their glacially slow tempos and the vintage fuzz tones on the guitar and bass, but the vocals are snarling, legible, and very punk-sounding to me. Dying Out is also mixed like a hardcore record, with the drums and vocals way up front. The guitarist and bassist are also very spare in their playing, leaving lots of open space in the music and often lying back and just feeding back for bars at a time, sometimes even going completely silent for entire sections. With long stretches without vocals as well, this leaves Dridge’s emphasis squarely on the drums, and this is a drummer worth listening to. I know everyone makes fun of the phrase, “it’s about the notes you don’t play,” but it’s applicable here, as Dridge’s drummer is locked in a give-and-take with silence throughout these very long songs. This might be a deep reference for anyone outside Raleigh, but Dridge’s drum-forward doom reminds of the band Confessor, an underrated Earache Records band anchored by a similarly captivating, virtuosic drummer. I also have to mention the incredible moment in the title track when the singer shouts “let’s go!” and the already slow tempo drops in half, grinding to a sickly, dehydrated crawl. We’re not known for pushing slow music at Sorry State, but fuck… this rules.