Dust of Days - Analog Mind Bender (2017)

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Written by Craig Bowles, posted by blog admin

The fury conjured by New Jersey’s Dust of Days on their newest full length album Analog Mind Bender is balanced out against equally attention grabbing dynamics and expert contrasting of light and shadow. They aren’t afraid to confound your expectations and challenge you with textures a hundred and eighty degrees different from what you heard in the previous song. This is the hallmark of a band with the legs to carry them through long careers. Analog Mind Bender’s twelve songs are flush with rough and ready guitar, but Frank Lettieri Jr.’s songwriting raises this a few notches above the rebellious and brooding semi-juvenile spirit typically presiding over these sorts of efforts. Dust of Days makes rock music for adults who want some challenging subject matter and intelligence to come along with the thrashing riffs and bludgeoning rhythm sections.  If the band’s 2012 full length debut established them as a promising band to keep your ears open for, Analog Mind Bender solidifies and expands on that potential in enormous ways.

The title song kicks off the release and it is, arguably, one of the album’s “lighter” efforts musically. Make no mistake that the guitar punch present in Dust of Days’ music is quite real and present on every track, but “Analog Mind Bender” has some distinctive melodic touches that later songs lack. Lettieri’s vocals are impassioned, but he has a deceptive range and the ability to get the material over in a variety of ways. That’s illustrated quite nicely on the next song “Aurora” – Lettieri alternates between speaking and singing in an effective way that never seems too theatrical or a drag on the song’s energy level. There’s a harder edge present in this song, as well, that shows Dust of Days off as a fiery outfit while still emphasizing the solid, attention grabbing songwriting that Lettieri turns in one song after another. “Mustang” takes their talents in an entirely different direction as this number embraces a more clear-cut alternative rock feel than the first two songs. The emphasis on rampaging guitars is certainly less than before and Lettieri’s vocals are far more concerned with phrasing and emotive potential than they are in competing with a sonic storm raging all around. “Little Angel”, likewise, hails from a similar music lineage as the aforementioned tune, but the guitars are amped up much more here and regain the crunch they exhibited to open the album.

“Death Vibrations” is a sleeper track on the album that hopefully doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. It couples a streamlined and focused rock stride with notable punk rock tendencies and spirit to spectacular effect. Lettieri gives one of his best vocal performances on the album and you can really hear how intent he is on getting this song over with the listener. “Porcelain” is the album’s final moody quasi-ballad and the uncluttered texture of the song gives performer and listener alike plenty of room to allow their imaginations to meander and fill in the spaces within the composition. “Ghosts” closes Dust of Days’ Analog Mind Bender on a challenging note. The song is split into two halves – the first part is a brief acoustic track colored in a darker hue than anything else on the album and the longer second part is more electronic in nature while still retaining the same glowering intensity of the first half. You won’t hear many albums in this musical vein capable of surprising you as much as Dust of Days’ latest release. Analog Mind Bender definitely deserves being mentioned among the best albums of 2017.