dust announce debut album Sky Is Falling out Oct 10 + share ‘Drawbacks’
PRAISE FOR dust
“Their glowering yet ultra-melodic tunes represent everything exciting about post-punk’s latest wave of young practitioners”
“Absorbing everything from Joy Division to Iceage into their DNA, the band’s shimmering, sub-zero electronics add a frosted, almost marbled aspect to their sound”
“Their live show blew me away and I had to check out their music”
“A classic post-punk quality to it... Refreshing in terms of how lush and smothering they all sound”
“To turn the head of a person walking toward the door and compelling them... that is an absolutely incredible thing. dust did that a couple hundred times that night in March in the sticky heat of Austin, Texas”
“Creating music set to shake up your senses and truly leave an impact”
“Opportunity awaits”
DUST
Sky Is Falling LP
Oct 10 via dust / Virgin Music Group
PRE-SAVE / PRE-ORDER HERE
‘Drawbacks‘ is out now, buy/stream it here.
dust, leading Australian alternative/post-punk group, today announce their debut album Sky Is Falling, due October 10 via dust / Virgin Music Group. The plunge for the ascendant post-punk outfit comes with the brand new offering ‘Drawbacks’. LISTEN + WATCH HERE + PRE-SAVE LP HERE.
An extension of their formative debut style, ‘Drawbacks’ pummels with textured chord progressions and abrasive lyrics. Justin Teale’s words of personal frustration and isolation that offer glimpses of love and hope; Kye Cherry’s frenetic drum backing and Liam Smith’s persistent bass groove bolsters Gabe Stove’s guitar and Adam Ridgway’s woozy saxophone from gust to boiling point. Written wholly collaboratively, bleeding between anguish and desperation ‘Drawbacks’ is dust in full force.
Of the single, Justin explains “Drawbacks is about everyday feelings and thoughts that one experiences and leaning towards the ones that make you confused or in doubt. Feelings of shame and regret in social surroundings where you should feel comfortable, and you can’t shake off the head noise. I guess this song is a way of talking to myself in the same way I do with my thoughts without sounding pretentious. With the vocal delivery being so quick it almost portrays as a word vomit of the things that you say to yourself in your head. The people around me I love and am very inspired by, I look up to them and notice how they deal with social settings and communication, it almost feels like I’m studying them.”
WATCH: ‘Drawbacks’ (Official Video)
Since first emerging in 2023 with their iteration of Australian post-punk on debut EP et cetera, etc, the group have continued to dominate. dust’s industrially shaped rock, endemic to their steel city origins, has taken them out of this world: major continental tours across Australia, the UK and US supporting formative influences Slowdive, Interpol, Bloc Party, Protomartyr and Militarie Gun, to stages with Hockey Dad, Trophy Eyes, DZ Deathrays, Floodlights, CLAMM, Adam Newling and more.
Industry alike clammer, word of mouth fever following them across un/official showcases at BIGSOUND, SXSW Austin and Sydney, The Great Escape to landing appearances at Laneway, Pitchfork Music Festival, London Calling – as Monster Children firmly put it, once you experience dust, you “will never be the same.” Indicative of their strength to straddle accessibility with newfound audiences to resonance with their musical heroes.
Today’s announcement extends to news of their signing for US bookings representation with Ground Control Touring’s Lindsay Ibberson. Elated, she shares “I could not be more excited to welcome dust to GCT. I am thrilled to play a role in telling their story over here in the states – let’s get after it!”
dust’s evolution continues on debut Sky Is Falling. Their sound, grounded in genre defiance and reinvention – shoegaze and electronic experimentalism side-by-side with elusive saxophone arrangements and abrasive guitar lines – is firmly rooted in melancholia and self-inquiry. Anarchic propulsion that denotes Geese to Double Virgo level extremities, with blissful nods to the classics, Sonic Youth, and My Bloody Valentine.
Their debut album, dust reveal, is a seminal moment. “On our first international tour, “the sky is falling” seemed to summarise the infinite and indefinite possibilities ahead. It was a phrase that kept surfacing between that formative moment on tour and the nihilistic lull after returning home to normal work and life. Accepting the unknown has made us more comfortable experimenting and taking risks in our songwriting. Truly immersing ourselves, we’ve spent hundreds of rehearsals and live shows crafting and conceptualising this album.”
Sky Is Falling springboards contemporaries in Moin and untitled (halo) – their fusion, slightly softer and refined while still raw and spontaneous. Diverse in approach and wholly sub-genre agnostic, at once nostalgic and forward-leaning. Reflective of their restless engagement with the social zeitgeist, slouching towards the future that they uneasily attempt to define. Enter: Sky Is Falling, dust’s attempt at making sense of it all.
Formed against the backdrop of the pandemic in 2020, the project of Awabakal land / Newcastle-based dual guitarist-vocalists Gabriel Stove and Justin Teale, bassist Liam Smith, guitarist and saxophonist Adam Ridgway, and drummer Kye Cherry, dust offer an invigorating new take on Australian post-punk: progressive, catchy, and irresistible. Just as artistically motivated by the fragmented, free-genre steps of Yung Lean and Burial, merging experimental jazz and electronica into a sound as immediate as Inhaler and Violent Soho, this idiosyncratic joining of the fringes comes together much like their roots in Newcastle, and the band’s careful balance of in-betweens. Through their debut EP et cetera, etc dust set their sights on affirming their position in the local scene as vital and exciting. Born in the middle of periods of normalcy and uncertainty; not quite close enough to the major city scenes nor far enough isolated away; equally inspired by the groups making waves on both sides of the Pacific, dust take these keen observations to offer an invigorating take on Australian post-punk: progressive, catchy, and irresistible. In time, no doubt a contemporary answer to their hometown’s historic origins.
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