Not a comeback. Not a concept piece. Not reinventing the wheel either. DWELLERS just turned in a record after eleven years that sounds like theyāve been watching the world rust and finally decided to plug the amps back in.
Corrupt Translation Machine isnāt flashy. Itās not trying to be your favorite record. But itās built from the same emotional ash as a certain kind of classic – the kind that never got radio play but changed people anyway. Thereās the narcotic weight of mid-’90s comedown rock – not stoner stuff, not sludgy riff math, but that heavier-than-heavy feeling you get when melody is coated in dirt and grief and distortion. The beauty gets through, but itās been damaged on the way in.
Some tracks drift like they were written underwater. Others come down like rusted machinery grinding itself apart. You get long, aching bends that hang in the air like Gilmour in his loneliest moods, then sudden swerves into claustrophobic rhythm work that could sit next to Fantastic Planet-era Failure. Not in imitation – in intent. Mood over motion. Pressure over pace.
Itās built on the bones of blues rock, but filtered through fog and static. The kind of songwriting where the song is just a frame – the real message leaks out from the edges. There are moments where it feels like Radioheadās most damaged spaces – Amnesiac if it had dirt under its fingernails – and then others where you catch that cracked, desert-sky loneliness that Neil Young always made sound so inevitable. Not Americana, exactly – more like whatās left behind when that myth falls apart.
And then thereās the grit. DWELLERS can lean into menace when they want to, but they never swing for big rock moments. Think Songs for the Deaf stripped of its swagger – all paranoia, no smirk. Think Bowie not in his glam phase, but out in Berlin, staring into the night. Think Pink Floyd before the bombast set in. The dread of it, the space in it. That.
This band doesnāt chase genre markers. They chase atmosphere. They sit in dissonance. They let songs take time to rot, bloom, burn out. You donāt get hooks. You get repetition that means something. You get synths that bleed into fuzzed-out guitar like memory eating tape. You get drums that donāt lead – they loom.
The new lineup is locked in. Nobodyās overplaying. Nobodyās trying to make a name here. Theyāre just building weight, letting the tone do the talking. Toscanoās voice is worn and half-lit, more ghost than frontman. Not broken – just past explanation.
Nothing here resolves. Nothing is spelled out. Corrupt Translation Machine is the sound of trying to communicate something you canāt quite get across – and then deciding to leave the broken message in anyway.
The record doesnāt posture. It doesnāt beg. It just exists, and in the kind of way that reminds you most bands are afraid to.
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Released by Small Stone Recordings on May 23, 2025
