Heat Dust – S/T
It might not seem like it, but we do receive punk submissions pretty frequently. They just all suck, hard, and aren’t even worth a negative review because they’re typically so typical they deserve nothing more than silence. Suffice to say it takes something especially tasty or tedious for us to put it up on here, for all to see. Tedious we only do if we’re feeling creative enough, and trust us, if you suck enough that we don’t review it, it probably means it’s the worst kind of suck possible. Be proud if you receive a negative score on here, because it means you, in all your awfulness, still caught our attention. But who wants that anyway? You’d rather have positivity and feel-good vibes coursing through your veins after visiting the site. Type your band name into Google, ah yes, Deaf Sparrow has reviewed our LP/cassette/CD/whatever. Do I/we click? Click. God there it is, there it is. Screw this text, get to the score, ahhhhhhhhhhh. We think that’s probably what Heat Dust collectively did after they started this intro, because we purposefully began in dark places, and from there we’re going to fill the world with their punk light.
Ah, so nice to see a relatively new punk band doing something worth a few of our words, or in this case three paragraphs of words. Heat Dust has been around for only around four years, and their output small, with only a single and a compilation to prove they exist. This particular S/T was originally released on cassette by the band, and then got the attention of beastly obscurity junky label The Flenser for a reissue on yes vinyl what else send copy now. We already had our tongues all over this when it came, simply because said label is known for things of a darker aesthetic, and we like it dark, so this had to be good. Largely, yes, that is the case.
Heat Dust brings a welcome sense of brooding to punk, something that the genre could really use more often. Yeah, we get it, in essence it’s expected to be political, and every generation has something or someone in politics to demonize, deface, and put on shirts using Xerox art that mixes images of starving children in Africa covered in Fortune 500 logos. It’s amazing, in fact, that such an approach has lasted so long, but like hardcore there’s always a new generation looking for the easy way out when it comes to rebellion. Heat Dust, thus, is not for you if you’re two-stepping in stud jackets, so get out of here, skank somewhere else, or whatever you do. That is what you do, right? Anyway, if you’re looking an oiboi or oigurl through and through, stay away, because you’ll likely label this as “hipster” because you can’t comprehend. Stop the stereotyping, stop the hate. Heat Dust use classic punk drive, but surround it with a depressive mood that should draw the usual punk fan in with its otherworldly presence, if they take the time to understand there’s more out there in punk. Such as that lead-in on track two, “(Hopefully) Alone”, which is just so heavenly, enough that we want to toss an extra -ly at the end of it to negate its adverbial qualities, leaving only heaven. They pull out the speed, then they pull out the depressants. Ahhh, so refreshing. The only drag is that Heat Dust really stick to their guns throughout the majority, when some more experimentation would be to their benefit, because at times because of how punk works in its core, it can come off here as a little redundant even here. What saves it is how they approach it in general, with that soul-bleeding that still finds a way to decide to live. It’s like Goth without the suicide and punk without the politics, which is good, but let’s see what you have to offer next time, ye lads. Oi.
Written by Stanley Stepanic
Heat Dust: S/T
The Flenser Records
4.2 / 5
