Dictaphone Blues – Greetings from Glen Eden (EP Review) ⭐⭐⭐

Dictaphone Blues is multi-instrumentalist Edward Castelow’s main vehicle for his retro rock’n’roll. He describes Greetings from Glen Eden as a throw-back to the Nineties dirty garage guitar sound.

This project was inspired by recent fatherhood. Says he’s chucked out the wall of sound of his previous two albums. But really, it’s just a different wallpaper.

The emphasis is fun and not deep, ponderous introspection. Glen Eden is a border zone to the wild West of Auckland. A buffer to the more pretentious middle-class hippies in Titirangi, and the real bogans further out. This would appeal more to the latter.

Current single No Beef is straight-out clattering rock’n’roll. A direct punky throw-back to the late Seventies when varsity students were listening to their scratched vinyl copies of AK’79 and raging around their grungy flats to the cheapest beer you could buy at the liquor store.

Deliberately low-fi. The only words are no beef. The video features his two-year-old son (I presume) running around and occasionally banging on a drum-kit.

Today you can buy an expensive over-priced vinyl copy of AK’79, or better still get a superior sounding and much cheaper CD copy with heaps of extra tracks.

Chasing After an Echo starts the EP and is a better track. Channeling some of the inspired sound of the early Oasis. The dirty fuzzed guitar feedback sound. Grimy and messy and a whale of a good time. Castelow manages to sound a little a Gallagher brother with his phrasing.

Someone I used to know well/ Baby, I will never let go. It could be baby or it could be maybe.

Soothe the Muse. Heavy sludge and the post-Pepper Beatles sound is continued. The wallpaper becomes a maelstrom. The lyric in the middle of the afternoon repeated, makes it funny.

Exist to Insist switches the tone with an acoustic guitar intro. But a Stratocaster soon joins in and plays a tasty nerve guitar riff over some grunge’n’roll. High on a rainbow is a lyric concession to the hippies.

Blow closes the EP, and they broaden the scope. Late Sixties psychedelic power pop. After a low-fi intro, they launch into a punchy, melodic number like those punk pioneers the Monkees. (Stepping Stone, you understand). The extended outro meanders off with an acoustic guitar.

Greetings From Glen Eden from Dictaphone Blues is good retro fun with a keen sense of humour. Seems appropriate in these tense times.

⭐⭐⭐

Rev Orange Peel

Greetings From Glen Eden is released May 5th.

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