A strange and often beguiling journey through psychedelic pop, fractured relationships and the lessons we learn the hard way.
There is something immediately intriguing about Dum Evol. Brighton’s Moon Attendant have created an album that feels rooted in the psychedelic sounds of the 1960s while refusing to settle comfortably into nostalgia. Across ten songs, guitars, keyboards and violin combine in ways that can be playful, dreamy, mournful or deliberately unsettling. The results will not be for everyone, and there are moments when the music feels as though it might collapse under its own eccentricity. Yet there is plenty to enjoy here, particularly for listeners willing to follow the album wherever it chooses to go.
The Sounders establishes the mood immediately, its retro-psychedelic sound providing a suitably strange introduction. The lyrics are equally elusive, moving between images of broken relationships, history and something threatening lurking beneath the surface. “Ghost trains will eat the young” is typical of a song that seems to hint at meaning rather than explain itself, while the repeated warning that “you know when they’re coming for you” gives the closing section an unexpected sense of menace. It is an unusual beginning, but one that makes clear that this is not going to be a straightforward listen.
The album is at its most accessible on songs such as Victor Noir, where an almost playful ascending keyboard gradually develops into something more dreamlike. The music provides a gentle counterpoint to lyrics that move between work, relationships and the grandiose declaration, “Why don’t we rule the world? / It’s got to be ours”. Look The Other Way is simpler still, built around a restrained arrangement in which a lovely violin part adds an emotional layer to the song. The repeated plea to believe that “it works for me” gradually becomes less convincing, particularly as the narrator finds themselves “trapped in the truth”.
That tension between the apparently simple and the emotionally complicated becomes central to the album. Dum Evol itself introduces a darker musical palette, with a dirty-sounding guitar giving its nostalgia a sadder edge. Its story of youthful conflict and self-destruction is unusually direct, moving from arguments and broken glass towards the recognition that some lessons simply have to be learned. “It’s such dum evolution / you still have to learn the hard way” provides the album with its central idea, while the later wish to speak to a younger self and say “you’ll be ok” gives the song an unexpected tenderness. Beneath the strangeness, there is a very human recognition of how difficult it can be to understand ourselves until we have made our own mistakes.
The more mournful My Favourite Fear explores similar territory from a different perspective. Sung in a minor key, its sense of uncertainty and vulnerability is matched by lyrics that seem to circle around disappointment, emotional damage and the difficulty of moving forward. Difficult Ifficult strips the music back even further. Beginning with guitar and piano before the violin gradually intertwines with the arrangement, it has an almost fragile quality, with the softened vocal adding to the sense of someone trying to find their way through confusion. “Don’t try to change it all” becomes a quiet plea for acceptance, before the song reaches towards something more hopeful in its invitation to “put your arms around the world”.
If there is a point where the album’s eccentricity becomes particularly effective, it is SFTD. The simple, almost childlike musical setting initially seems at odds with a lyric about twenty years of emotional baggage, demons and the creation of an increasingly enclosed world. The music itself seems almost to fold inwards as the song progresses, reinforcing the image of someone retreating into their own little space. The repeated “Are you ok hun?” is both affectionate and faintly unsettling, particularly when followed by the image of an echo chamber “where opinions rarely stray from my own”. It is a small song that manages to leave a surprisingly large shadow.
The album’s most expansive moment arrives with Those Velvet Eyes. Musically, this is where Moon Attendant look towards the horizon, creating something reflective and occasionally disturbing but also strangely calm. The song’s sense of drama gradually expands around lyrics that wrestle with love, conflict and the desire for change. “Oh I know your love’s enough / Let’s change it all around” provides a moment of resolution without pretending that everything can actually be resolved. It is one of the album’s strongest moments because the music gives these uncertainties room to breathe rather than trying to explain them.
Tonight We Fight offers a more energetic counterpart, driven for much of its length by a persistent bass figure. Its language of resistance, “we’re not toys, we’re not your fun”, gives the song an urgency that sits comfortably alongside the album’s recurring concern with conflict and power. It works particularly well as part of the wider sequence, adding energy before the record begins its final descent.
That descent is provided by Voyage into Darkness, which initially seems to float away from the listener. Guitar, bass and drums gradually emerge alongside the violin, bringing the album together for a satisfying conclusion. The lyric is sparse, built around arrival, distance, blame and loss, until the simple admission “And it cracks my heart” provides a suitably understated ending. After an album that has often seemed deliberately unstable, it is perhaps fitting that the final moments feel both expansive and grounded.
Dum Evol is unlikely to be an album that reveals everything on a first listen. Its psychedelic influences, unusual structures and sometimes opaque lyrics can make it feel elusive, while some of the simpler songs risk becoming slightly lost among its more distinctive moments. Yet there is a charm in its refusal to behave quite as expected. The violin brings an unexpected emotional dimension, the keyboards can shift a song from playful to dreamlike in an instant, and beneath the experimentation there is a recurring interest in love, conflict, memory and the uncomfortable process of growing older.
This is an album that occasionally feels as though it might fall apart, but that instability is also part of its appeal. Moon Attendant have made something strange, imperfect and genuinely interesting: a record that looks backwards for its sounds while remaining preoccupied with the very contemporary difficulties of trying to understand ourselves and each other. Dum Evol may require a little patience, but there is plenty here to reward it.
