DEHD

One Liner: Surf-y indie rock that sounds like lost 80's New Wave

Wikipedia Genre: Indie rock, post-punk, surf rock, garage rock
Home: Chicago

Poster Position: 14
Both Weekends.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  Never heard of this, but a guy whose musical opinions I generally can jibe with told me this was one of the bright spots on the poster for him.  Formed in 2015 in Chicago, they have kind of a reverb-y, old school sound that leans on surf and echoes.  And some 80's vibes too - I don't know what band I am hearing, but "Empty in my Mind" makes me think of some new wave band from the mid-80's.  Apparently, the two lead singers were once a romantic thing, but that ended and the team strayed in the band.  Must have been weird for the drummer, just chilling back there bopping the skins and hoping mommy and daddy will stop fighting.

Their second album was Water, from 2019, and it starts to make me think of The Cure and Velvet Underground (with Nico).  It's not as produced and lush as the Cure, much more raw and DIY-sounding, but it has that arty tossed off flavor of VU.  

2020's Flower of Devotion makes me think more of the shoegaze bands that I have heard.  It is kind of droning and harmonic and saturated with echoes at the same time.  At the start of it all, I don't love it, but some of these songs get more expansive and I like it.  Like "Month," it makes me think of the line between something like Echo and the Bunnymen and original R.E.M.  "Loner" is the top track on this disc with 5.5 million streams.

The start to that video is deeply annoying.  The angel should scream a little less.  As for the actual song, its pretty good.  Again, it feels very much like I am listening to something old that I just don't remember.  Like an old Siouxie and the Banshees album came across my feed and I fired the whole thing into my queue among the other new music I've been trying.

Since that, they have a brand new EP from 2022 called Empty in My Mind.  The top track from that has just over 1.3 million streams - "Bad Love."

I feel like a rube here, because I'm just not feeling the appeal.  It's not terrible or anything, but it really feels like a carbon copy of something that went out of fashion in the 80's and hasn't needed a re-do.  I sort of doubt I will go see this one.  But now I feel bad because my friend mentioned it as one of the three things he was excited about.  Dammit.  Guilt...