Cassette Review // Low Dose "Low Dose" (Knife Hits Records)

$6 //
Edition of 200 //
https://lowdosephilly.bandcamp.com/album/low-dose //

In the time that I've been listening to music, it always strikes me as somewhat odd when I find that band that makes me go "Why hasn't anyone done this before?"   You'd think that by now everything to do had already been done, yet here we are, still discovering new music every day.  And perhaps what's more telling isn't that Low Dose is creating a new genre or anything, but rather it's just the way that several aspects of rock music are combined to create their sound that it feels like something which should have been done so many times before now.

Through the heavy distortion I feel like this has more modern comparisons like Blackwater Holylight, Throwaway, Boom Said Thunder and Slothrust.   At the same time, this also does have those older sounds from the grunge era- which there are not a lot- but it's that sound like Hole and L7.   While those two sounds- the past and present- have been explored before, you have to add in this quality that I can't quite put my finger on to really round it all out.   At times, it reminds me of "In Utero" era Nirvana.   At other times, it simply reminds me of Soundgarden.

The sound can be slow and brooding, but yet on a song like "Song 12" it can be fast and to the point.   There are these just killer guitar riffs in here as well- and not just in the way that you might imagine hearing big, chunky distorted chords but also in those single notes that pierce through your very soul.   This music, which I don't think is really fair to say about grunge (that's a debate for another time perhaps) is rather technical in the way it is delivered at times.  I like to think of grunge as punk in the way you can plug in, crank it up and play and that isn't to say that Soundgarden wasn't an incredibly gifted band but you can just hear the raw talent through these songs.

Sometimes singing, sometimes screaming, "For Sure" just has a certain sound to it which makes me think of it as being like a single.   There are elements of Local H in here for sure and that's not just because I feel like I hear Local H in everything (because I listen to them so much)   It's a little bit of that Dead Sara band as well.   And then a song like "Otherworldly Motives" just hits different, not just from this cassette but in general in terms of rock songs.

"Not Break Skin" is a little Foo Fighters while the last song is slower, beautiful, melodic, sort of like "Only In Dreams" by Weezer and then it kicks in really heavy.    This cassette leaves me where I started- rocking out hard and wanting more.  I know you might read this and think "Oh, I've heard ___ before", but trust me when I say that you have not heard Low Dose before and you definitely should be playing this one as loudly as possible.