UK-based heavy post-rockers Dystopian Future Movies issued their sophomore full-length, Inviolate, earlier this year as the follow-up to 2017’s Time and last year’s Beholden to the Flame EP. Situated in Nottingham, the band boasts recognizable presences in guitarist/vocalist Caroline Cawley and drummer Bill Fisher (also ex-Mammothwing), both of whom feature in Church of the Cosmic Skull. Each is a founding member of that band as well as this one, and with Cawley‘s well-proven-by-now vocals at the center and a solidified-sounding lineup around Cawley and Fisher that brings Oisín O’Doherty to bass and Rafe Dunn to full-time membership on guitar, the group explore emotive and progressive textures from subdued drift to weighted crush to all-out cacophony across the seven-song/36-minute outing, often within a single song.

That happens not just in linear builds as so much post-anything might, but in ebbs and flows, undulations of tonal force rising from subtle tension on a song like “Rules” or filling the wide spaces of the penultimate “Black-Cloaked,” the final, surging churn of which offers one of Inviolate‘s most fervent payoffs; there’s plenty of competition in that regard from “Wreckage” and others. From the outset with the initial bursts of opener “Countenance,” there’s an experimentalist edge to Dystopian Future Movies that holds sway throughout, that leadoff track bookended at the finish by “Ten Years,” which is the only other track over six minutes long (though others come close). The centerpiece “All the Light,” for example, starts off with a post-hardcore crash that, for a literal two seconds, seems to hint toward an angular assault about to take place, but instead, Cawley cuts immediately to a crooning vocal over soft guitar, drums and harder thudding bass and chug-guitar adding tension gradually across the 5:40 span, and when the levee finally breaks, the subsequent push is more than just an explosion and end, but an exploration of the next stage of the song, no less dynamic than the prior stretch.

The brazen end of “All the Light” is preceded by the soulful expanse of “Rules” and followed by the two-minute “Kathleen,” which is as close to minimalism as Inviolate gets — that’s fairly close — and as Dystopian Future Movies push further into side B with “Black-Cloaked” and “Ten Years,” it becomes that much clearer just how little the album wants to do with genre. The style here is an amalgam. A melting pot of influences that, even compared to the debut just a few years ago, is given a personal spin by Cawley in more than just the lyrics. In its atmosphere, yeah, one might tag it with something like “heavy post-rock” as I did in the first sentence, but the truth of Inviolate is no less deep or wide-ranging than the mix of the audio itself (see also the deep focus of Cawley‘s photo on the album cover).

With consistency of vocals and tones and songwriting, Dystopian Future Movies never go so far as to become unhinged, even in the light-in-your-eyes burst of “Black-Cloaked” or the patient and memorable crashes and nod-out of “Ten Years,” the bassline of which speaks to doom without becoming it more than anything else, Cawley‘s guitar finishing with a winding echo like water swirling down a drain. But neither does the band veer into predictability as one song gives way to the next. It may be manageable in terms of runtime, but Inviolate is no less a journey for that.

And even that journey feels multifaceted; inward as much as outward. To wit, “Wreckage” — for which a video premieres below — engages its narrative instrumentally as well as lyrically, and the visuals come to match. There’s more about the track beneath the player, and of course the link to the vinyl, CD, etc.

Please enjoy:

Dystopian Future Movies, “Wreckage” official video

‘Wreckage’ is the second single from Dystopian Future Movies’ second album ‘Inviolate’ which was released via Lasairfhíona Records in March 2020.

Limited Edition Coloured Vinyl & CD available now via https://dystopianfuturemovies.com/shop

The video was produced by Caroline from the band and the mysterious artist known as Zorad.

The song is about a character struggling with their mental health: over-thinking, self-analysis and confusion. The video goes on to symbolise these struggles – the character is battered between narrowing, constricting walls.

The repeating guitar drone brings to mind the way our thinking minds can tread on old ground over and over – like a patient pacing the ward, awaiting healing or some release after withstanding pain.

The escalating combination of urgent bass line, echoed vocal parts with those dissonant high notes, and the final crescendo all conjure up the idea of crossing the boundary between physical ailment and health, or a mental illness and breakthrough.

Dystopian Future Movies are:
Caroline Cawley – Guitar & Vox
Bill Fisher – Drums
Oisin O’Doherty – Bass
Rafe Dunn – Guitar

Dystopian Future Movies, Inviolate (2020)

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Tags: Dystopian Future Movies, Dystopian Future Movies Inviolate, Inviolate, Lasairfhíona Records, Nottingham, UK

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2020 at 6:49 am and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.