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On Wax: Dali’s Llama, Twenty Years Underground

Posted in On Wax on December 20th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

How do you effectively summarize a prolific 20-year career on one two-sided LP? The correct answer is you don’t, and Palm Springs, California, desert rockers Dali’s Llama obviously get that idea. The band’s new collection, Twenty Years Underground — released as ever by their own Dali’s Llama Records in limited numbers — doesn’t quite aim to cull everything since their beginnings, and instead provides a sampling of their wares since 2007’s Sweet Sludge. Hardly sounds like the same kind of scope until you realize that Dali’s Llama have issued five albums in that time, and that in just eight songs, Twenty Years Underground does manage to cover Sweet Sludge and the Zach and Erica Huskey-led outfit’s subsequent outings, 2008’s Full on Dunes (review here), 2009’s Raw is Real (review here), 2010’s Howl Do You Do? (review here) and late-2012’s Autumn Woods (review here), the latter two of which purposefully looked beyond desert rock and into other areas of exploration, be it horror punk on the former or darker, more brooding sounds on the latter.

Early Dali’s Llama material from their first five albums remains somewhat obscure, and as Zach explains in the liner notes, to include any of that stuff would’ve involved remastering from the original analog tapes — doubtless an expense on time and money that a band looking to celebrate didn’t need to take on — but since it’s all self-released, it’s all also still in print, and whether it’s 1993’s Pre Post Now or 2006’s Chordata, which marked a return from a long hiatus, CDs are accessible through their own Dali’s Llama Records. As Dali’s Llama have proven over the years to be unflinching when it comes to doing things on their own terms, that that would continue with Twenty Years Underground is no big surprise, and while it would be interesting to have them go back and revisit some of the earlier stuff, maybe for Twenty Years Underground Vol. 2, it seems more fitting to approach this LP collection — their first vinyl — in a “what you see is what you get” mindset. That’s been my experience with the band since I first heard them, and it’s a standard to which their songwriting lives up.

Side A is particularly interesting here for the fact that it’s Dali’s Llama at their most desert rock. I’ve said on multiple occasions and I’ll reiterate that the simple fact of Dali’s Llama‘s relative obscurity in the heavy rock underground and their persistence in a DIY ethic only makes them more admirable — they do what they do regardless of who’s listening, in other words — and with cuts from Sweet Sludge and Full on Dunes, they are clearly in their element. “Desert Dogs” boasts a guest appearance from an immediately-recognizable Mario Lalli of Fatso Jetson, and Throw Rag singer Sean Wheeler contributes to the ultra-memorable “King Platypus” to close out the first half, so the band’s place in the lineage of the desert from which they come is established one way or another. For what it’s worth, the seven-plus-minute opener “Creosote” from Sweet Sludge gives an unrepentantly riffy opening to Twenty Years Underground chock full of their signature grit and even-more-signature lack of pretense, so that lineage wasn’t lacking for establishment in the first place. But it’s always better to be sure.

There’s no new material on Twenty Years Underground, which as prolific as the band has been since 2007 is something of a surprise, but again, space is a factor. The title-track to Autumn Woods tops nine minutes with its low rumble and moody sensibility, so their most recent work is well represented and “Creosote” is answered in kind, “Autumn Woods” closing out side B  in fine company with the faster “Bad Dreams” from the same album and the motor-riffing of “Raw is Real.” “She’s My Halloween” is something of a departure on Twenty Years Underground as Howl Do You Do? was for the band in general, ultimately a playful collection nodding at goth rock in the name of a good time, but the Huskeys chose the right song to represent that offering, with its organ scratch and memorable guitar progression bordering on classic psychedelic rock, and if you’re encountering Twenty Years Underground in the first place, chances are it’s not going to be your first exposure to Dali’s Llama — or if it is, that you’ll be open so such things in the context of a compilation, which sets a different expectation for flow and songs feeding into each other than a regular LP might.

Players joining Zach (guitar/vocals) and Erica (bass/backing vocals) vary, and over the course of Twenty Years Underground, Dali’s Llama trades out drummers twice and adds and then replaces a second guitarist, but the vibe is consistent across the board. If you know Dali’s Llama, then you know you’re getting straight-ahead songwriting with few frills, but between the guest spots, lineup variations and “She’s My Halloween,” you could hardly say the collection suffers from redundancy. The story of Dali’s Llama to this point has been one of a group — really a couple, but a couple bringing others with them for the ride — sticking to their passion in the face of whatever might befall them, and truly pursuing music for the sheer sake of loving it. In addition to liner notes from Zach and info about who plays on what, the sleeve that houses the 12″ platter features a collage that — if it doesn’t go back the full 20 years — certainly goes back a healthy portion of it, and the thread of the band’s drive is made even more plain. Regardless of trend, regardless of who’s come up and made it big, regardless of who’s sold what to what tv show, Dali’s Llama simply are and will continue to be. Zach says it himself, “It’s not over yet man!” Right on.

Dali’s Llama continue to inspire. If you want a lesson in what underground rock is all about, look no further.

Dali’s Llama, “Samurai Eyes” Live at Cobraside Distribution, Dec. 14, 2013

Dali’s Llama on Thee Facebooks

Dali’s Llama on Bandcamp

Dali’s Llama Records

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