ABOUT


Southampton’s Melt Dunes’ raucous racket is a violent sensory attack. Brutal aural experimentation has spawned what is the bastardised sound of whirring psychedelia and gutsy garage noise.
- Caught In The Crossfire Magazine


...The gig escalated, and the remaining two bands were phenomenal. Melt Dunes, who I've gone on about loving time and time again, played the penultimate set. Their 45 minute set was basically two songs long; a fuzzed out segue brought them into an explosive version of their latest single Epicaricacy, which like the rest of their set, revolves around massive riffs completely drenched in reverb, sounding a bit like a cross between The Black Angels and Spiritualized. Their set's second '~*movement*~' revolved around their first (of two) singles What's Your Name, being howled down the mics whilst the band made a hell of a lot of guitar based noise. Basically, Melt Dunes are the most amazing live act there is and if they ever play near you, you gotta go see them, because they really smashed it at the C4Q gig.


Melt Dunes followed, and completely tore the Alex a new one with their own brand of anger-psych. A four-piece, their set was one free flowing noise that pummelled and transported with some of the best guitar sounds, the most explosive dynamics changes and tortured reverb drenched vocals. I've reviewed them live before, and if you have any real proof that they're not the one of the best live bands in the country, I challenge you to see 'em live and disagree.



Hailing from my hometown, Melt Dunes combine spiralling, heavy riffs, trembling psychedelic guitar tones, and absolutely batshit song structures that have more in common with Ornette Coleman than they do Animal Collective. Notable for their heavy, pummelling live shows, seeing them is such an essential experience because they're really unlike every single band in the entire world... see them at The Great Escape, they're essential to see before you die.
FFO: Black Angels, Les Rallizes Denudes, The Wytches




Guitar shivers reminiscent of the Black Angels, and a tortured wailing sound that a friend recently (brilliantly) described to me as 'like The Wytches thrown into a k-hole', Melt Dunes sound like they're from another planet in the best possible way.
Brilliant standalone kaleidoscopic jams, the band really come into their own as a live act. Instead of the usual start-stop song-after-song-approach that most bands too small to headline their own show take, Melt Dunes mesmerise onlookers with one long psychedelic sprawl that stiches and interweaves bits of their released songs together with improvised material. Mastering dynamics it's sometimes a mere rippling psychedelic ambience, before crashing head first into bleach-soaked grunge riffs ripped right off a particularly dirty Mudhoney record and off beat reverb-ish sprawls that cosmically wash over you like a Hawkwind space jam. 



This is widescreen rock for the nocturnal stoner in your life – perfect for dive bars, killing sprees, and desperate motorcycle maintenance. Brooding grooves for those who like to be alone with their thoughts. Scuzzy sounds for daring hitchhikers.

So you know how Primal Scream scream from a different hymn sheet on each album? Between their tours, they don’t so much enter the studio as enter a chrysalis. The band transforms, and so does the music.

Now. Imagine if, in that space between two albums, a little bit of liquid sound were to somehow ooze from Bobby Gillespie’s mixing desk and sneak out of the studio. This is unbridled half-formed hybrid sound, not quite done evolving. Think of the failed Ripley/Alien experiments from Alien Resurrection.

But rather than a pitiful half-woman begging for the respite of death, this liquid hybrid is a groovy mercurial shapeshifter. And it will take on new forms depending on the specific session from which it escaped.

Tonight picture the ooze that slithered away from the sessions between Vanishing Point and XTRMNTR. That ooze is Melt Dunes. They combine the loose haziness of the former with the electric aggression of the latter.

And even better, they never stop playing. I don’t know if they’re powering through a single really long song, or if they’ve learned to blend their songs seamlessly together; but either way, theirs is a brooding soundscape that never ceases to enthrall.