Dez Dare – Hairline Ego Trip

Brighton based, Australia born artist Dez Dare (aka Darren Smallman) was well known in Victoria’s punk scene, he was a member of numerous bands, most notably Warped, and founded the Low Transit Industries label, however since 2010 he has resided on the south coast of the UK in Brighton where he has remained active. Dez Dare is now set to release his debut full length, Hairline Ego Trip, next month, the album is a home made lo-fi psych punk affair that almost defies description… almost.

Whatever the soundtrack may convey, and we’ll come to that shortly, the punk ethos is embedded in the DNA of Dez Dare‘s debut, his distaste for everything that spews from the right is immediately apparent on the album’s opening duo of tracks, lead single Dumb Dumb Dumb and Conspiracy O’ Conspiracy, that bring the punk spirit to the fore, jagged distorted riffs meet with an off kilter almost jaunty beat that is offset with a vocal delivery that spits venom. However, King + Queen Monstrosity takes their psyche influenced post punk on a bad trip, a distorted hallucination that’s trapped in a fuzzed out nightmare.

Hairline Ego Trip continues to weave it’s way across the musical landscape, from a classic slab of attitude and fuzz that was born in a garage in the late 60’s (My My Medulla), to hypnotic, tripped out and stripped down desert rock (Sandy’s Gonna Try), through almost metronomic post punk beats (Break My Vice) and the unsettling and jarring (Crowned By Catastrophe), before the album descends into a psychedelic trance (Goodbye Autonomy). However, this is not the end, the album’s finalè, Tractor Beam, Shitstorm, embraces every disparate element from this eccentric and eclectic collection, and wraps it up into a sprawling unhinged odyssey.

Dez Dare‘s debut solo album is a unique collection that takes it cue from the past five decades of substance fuelled rebellion, the initial punky surge pulls you into the album, but from there this is a trip across time and quite possibly space as well. There are obvious precursors to the kind of unhinged soundtrack Dez Dare has delivered on Hairline Ego Trip, the likes of Hawkwind, Loop, Evil Blizzard and Butthole Surfers are all on the same unstable wavelength that Dare is tuned into. Hairline Ego Trip is an unpredictable album that lives on the edge of counter culture, right on the undefinable, original and chaotic outer limits.

You can pre-order Hairline Ego Trip via Bandcamp