Dear Doonan are back with their debut full-length album. This record is a self-titled stomper of a record, soaked in deliciously groovy psychedelia
Dear Doonan makes us feel like we’ve entered a mind-bending tunnel of sunkissed sounds and transient layers of FX’d guitars and vocals. Prepare to be sent echoing into a reality completely separate from the one you’re currently in.
This is perhaps the only way Dear Doonan’s latest album could be described. But it is with absolute delight that we are taken through this surf-psych abyss.
These days, with such an oversaturated music market, it’s rare to hear an album so interesting and enjoyable from beginning to end. Clearly there’s something in the air in the Sunshine Coast, as these chill shredders prove that it is, in fact, possible to create a debut record packed from cover to cover with hits.
A few of our personal favourites include Hey Lady and She’ll Be Back (perhaps the songs are related). Their impact stems from gradual instrumental build-ups that eventually come crashing down like a huge North-Easterly swell off a beach on the Sunny Coast, dumping you on the sand in a frenzy of mean guitar solos and crunchy, cymbal-heavy percussion.
Soultana takes their classic surf sound and douses it in rhythmic reggaeton, along with the perfect touch of congas and other Latin percussion, all while retaining that Hendrix-meets-Santana approach to guitar that has come to be one of the band’s defining characteristics.
Another thing we love about these guys is their delicate and sophisticated vocal style which borrows from the transient and subtle atmospheres reminiscent of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and The Doors. The deep hush of the band’s lead vocals, mixed with their trippy, abstract lyricism, ties together beautifully what is already a heavy and dynamic arrangement of instrumental sounds. It’s really just the cherry on top of the sumptuous sound cake that is the self-titled album from Dear Doonan.
Get around their absolute ripper of an album above.
