The Dirty Feel
Album: “Truth Be Told”
Release Date: 11th November 2013
At last it’s here – the first full-length album by London power trio The Dirty Feel. Its name is ‘Truth Be Told’, but as drummer Virgil Howe once observed, maybe it should be called ‘Ten Years Too Late’. Because having strived for a decade to create their masterpiece, the band is unveiling it in the shadow of tragedy; having lived with serious illness since his teens, guitarist Nick Hirsch died in March of 2012.
‘Truth Be Told’ is the prefect distillation of his musical influences and showcase for the band’s alarming virtuosity. Mixing the spring-loaded sleaze-Funk of Grand Central Station with the Blues Rock swagger of Led Zeppelin, the melodic finesse of Prince with the metallic menace of Queens of the Stone Age, it leaves the listener wide-eyed and unzipped; Nick Hirsch garrotes the air with lethally taut precision psych; Kerim ‘Kez’ Gunes’ volleys of bass notes ricochet around the room like rubber bullets; and Virgil Howe, leading the charge from behind the drums as he stampedes across his kit.
For ‘Truth Be Told’ they revisit live favourites – from the haunting and redemptive ‘Somewhere in the Romance’ with its jackknifing guitar lines, to the adrenalized head down charge of ‘Get Down’, and debuted several new compositions while exploring more progressive directions with songs like album–closer ‘Spanish Silver’. Meanwhile, producer Kostas Latrelis’ muscular and imaginative production puts their rock heft at the heart of the sound while his lightness of touch ensures the set never stumbles under it’s own weight. Most of all, it coaxes the subtleties and inventiveness of Nick’s melodies and his acerbic yet heartfelt lyrics to the fore. On ‘Truth Be Told’ the standard Blues-Rock cock-out strut is replaced with wry self-doubt and emotional perceptiveness.
As Barrie Cadogan of Little Barrie puts it “Nick never had the need to draw attention to himself offstage but he made you sit up and listen when he started playing.“
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