WL//WH Track Of The Day Dumb Things
Following the previous singles “Instant Coffee” and the title track “Self Help,” Meanjin/Brisbane five-piece Dumb Things return with the shimmery new single “Windows and Doors,” “an indie-pop ode to being on the outside looking in,” taken from the band’s upcoming third album, “Self Help,” which is due for release on April 4.
After a rawer, twanging slacker sounding acclaimed s/t debut album in 2017, the band, made of Adam Vincent (guitar/vocals), Madeleine Keinonen (guitar/vocals), James Southey (guitar/vocals), Andy Robinson (bass/vocals) and Pat Hill (drums), has slowly developed, with passion and cleverness, an intimate and bittersweet distinctive brand of sun-sprinkled, at times jangly, Indie Pop, seamlessly graced by compelling melodic leanings.
An ever deeper array of airy electro-acoustic instrumentation, refined arrangements, and charming harmonies coalesce seamlessly into a distinctive, deceptively simple, yet nuanced songwriting flair, laced with a thought-provoking existential lyricism, arousing natural comparisons to fellow Northeastern Australian staples The Go-Betweens, as well as Dunedin Sound’s finest The Chills, and The Bats with forays into UK Creation Records territories.
“Windows and Doors” is about when a conversational barrier occurs due to distance, language, or generational divides, one might use shared memories to bridge the disconnection and find common ground.
Sung, as the former slightly darker “Instant Coffee,” by the endearing Madeleine Keinonen, the tune rolls out a swaying ground of skittering percussions, and sonorous warm snaky bass lines, pulsing and creeping within glimmering guitar strums and fluttering wistful brassy key motifs over nostalgic vocals of introspective gloom rising into high cheery angst, amid gently infectious layers of comforting “pap-pa-pa-pa” backings.
Dumb Things‘ third studio album, “Self Help”, is scheduled to be released on April 4, 2025.
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