The Lash is deliberately uncharacteristic of The Dirty Nil. On straight aesthetics before everything else, the artwork most resembles an ‘80s hardcore rarity that had, like, 100 copies pressed, joined in representing its era by a stark, greyscale press shot, deliberately battered and blurred. For comparison, this is the same band who, on an album called Fuck Art, chose to not further mire the idea of such a statement and adorned its cover with a smiling, pastel-lit dog. Calling them the ‘anti-PUP’ is a stretch, but of Canadian punk’s scrappy pair of wunderkinds, The Dirty Nil would often hang onto and parade their miseries a lot less.
To be fair, The Lash isn’t doing that, either. Not really, anyway. All of this is meant to stand for Luke Bentham’s catharsis—blunt and less guarded, and in all aspects, much more forthcoming. Even by the standards of The Dirty Nil and their talent for nailing a timeless punk style across four full-lengths, The Lash does its utmost to live up to the clean, swift strike of its title. It’s The Dirty Nil’s hard rock album, loaded with the riffs and musical thunderclaps to convey its big ol’ yell of abreaction. And if somehow you couldn’t tell—between a near-spotless track record and a banger of an idea—they crush this, as well.
On paper with this one, you’ve got a first half that’s pretty close to flawless, and then a second that isn’t too far behind. The only difference is how some earlier cuts encapsulate the hard rap of The Lash slightly more perfectly. Gallop Of The Hounds is one hell of an opener, wielding a blaring, granite riff that stakes this era’s retuning within its first 30 seconds, though makes sure to not alienate a punk spirit entirely. You get pieces of that elsewhere with shades of The Menzingers peeking through on Spider Dream and I Was A Henchman, but ‘punk’ in The Dirty Nil’s hands does more when it’s allowed to roar and, more importantly, sneer. It’s the basic principle behind Rock N’ Roll Band, which, in a song about how the appreciation and love of the game only goes so far, finds itself packing a firebomb towards the industry in “Someone else is getting rich, not you”.
Thus, the magic of The Lash becomes isolated and preserved—the louder and brasher The Dirty Nil can get, the more gold they end up striking. Hero Narrative could be a late-album highlight solely for the refrain of “I just remembered that I didn’t forget about you” being as soaked in bile as it is. Less concentrated in its acidity but perhaps even more slamming, Fail In Time plays a defeatist anthem like a grand holler into the void, the culmination of major-key vamps, power-pop core and Bentham’s titanium-clad earworm “I got a feeling in my spine”. When The Lash lets its power swing, it delivers some of the best moments in The Dirty Nil’s catalogue, full stop. Even when tilting into a more sincere, hopeful bent on They Won’t Beat Us (or, more than likely, because of it), there’s a healthy amount of muscle powering the journey.
Slower moments, meanwhile, feature less but rarely slouch. The album’s ‘worst’ slots in here with Spider Dream, and even that’s for an even, burnished feel that’s less impressive, though nothing close to bad. If anything, it’s shown to work elsewhere on this very album, as That Don’t Mean It Won’t Sting country-fries its Americana and adds a lurching bass step behind it for a really playful, addictive instrumental loop. Moreover, every song on The Lash has at least one outstanding compositional feature to its name, and rarely only one. Even on the straighter-than-straightforward punk song Do You Want Me, the hurried, blasted-out feel is the perfect propeller for less than two minutes, which each constituent part working in faultless concert.
Of course, you could also be more conservative with the analysis and say how much The Lash just rocks, like it plainly does. Not a new phenomenon from The Dirty Nil, by any stretch, but it’s also one that’s never unpleasant to see. Especially now when it’s taken the form of a harder, more bruising reworking, to find not one iota of spirit diminished or lost is a wonderful outcome. If anything, all of that’s been cranked up, allowed to show more teeth, and turned into a brand new—yet distinctly familiar—animal. It might very well be The Dirty Nil’s new one to beat.
For fans of: PUP, Heart Attack Man, Spanish Love Songs
‘The Lash’ by The Dirty Nil is released on 25th July on Dine Alone Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
