For the past decade-plus, Amos Pitsch has been best-known as the face and the creative force behind the idiosyncratic Appleton, Wisconsin punk band Tenement, which made big-time critics swoon with its sprawling 2015 album Predatory Headlights. Now, Pitsch is in another band on the verge of a breakthrough: He also drums and sings in Dusk, a self-described “power twang” sextet that have just released its second full-length, Glass Pastures, via Don Giovanni Records. Relentlessly punchy and crunchy, the album would make Dusk a household name in a just world—or, at least, in houses with a healthy appreciation for rollicking Midwestern roots-rock bands like The Replacements and Uncle Tupelo.
Dusk have a chance to outpace Tenement, in part because they’re releasing Glass Pastures at an opportune time. Over the past few years, indie rock has experienced a surge of bands that incorporate country twang into their sound: Big Thief, Big Nothing, Pinegrove, Ratboys, Florry, Free Range, Wednesday, MJ Lenderman. Dusk sits comfortably alongside all of them, ready to be discovered by the same audience that adores those bands. The closest cousin to Dusk on that list is probably MJ Lenderman, the solo project of Wednesday guitarist Jake Lenderman.
Like that band, Dusk bring a shaggy sort of swagger to its songs, neatly splitting the difference between Pavement and Neil Young. You can hear those two touchstones immediately on Glass Pastures, as opening track “Pissing in a Wishing Well” fuses together a very “Rattled By the Rush” riff with a guitar solo that sounds like it fell from the “Down By the River” family tree. As a bonus, the song’s lyrics have a vaguely Malkmus-ian quality that feels both tossed off and deeply meaningful at the same time: “When you wake up in the sunshine / Cry a good cry for the good times,” Pitsch sings against a sturdy wall of Grade A country-rock. “Lick a candle wick / Eat your lipstick / Make it all count today.”
The rest of the album showcases Dusk’s considerable range as a band: “At the Roadside” rolls along as a classic, bluesy choogle. “Incredible Edible Egg” highlights the group’s honky-tonkin’ skills (and its sense of humor). “Gold Blue & Grey” is a gooey cloud of ‘70s-style soft-pop. And you can hear the band’s longstanding interest in soul and gospel music coursing through “Don’t Let Them Tell You,” a late-album highlight. (Dusk formed in 2014 to play country and soul covers.)
Throughout Glass Pastures, Ryley Crowe proves himself to be the band’s not-so-secret weapon, lacing each track with shimmers and swoops of pedal steel guitar and putting the twang in Dusk’s twang-rock. And it is surely no coincidence that two of the album’s most spirited tunes—the uplifting closing track “Be Nice To Me All Day Long” and “Dusk,” a psychedelic soul strut—feature powerful lead vocals by pianist Julia Blair, who dispenses a bit of simple wisdom in the latter: “Don’t worry sweetie / Golden hour may be fleeting / But it happens every day / Oh it’s dusk again.” Nearly six years after the release of their self-titled debut, it is, indeed, Dusk again—a very welcome return, and right on time.
Ben Salmon is a committed night owl with an undying devotion to discovering new music. He lives in the great state of Oregon, where he hosts a killer radio show and obsesses about Kentucky basketball from afar. Ben has been writing about music for more than two decades, sometimes for websites you’ve heard of but more often for alt-weekly papers in cities across the country. Follow him on Twitter at @bcsalmon.
