Date Palms

Date Palms have always brought a new level to the drift and float of drone. They craft tracks that float not so much in a stratospheric ether as level with your head, opening at the temples to swim languidly beyond the seawalls of consciousness. On their latest, The Dusted Sessions they still wade into the earthy, clay streaked waters that have marked their past work but now they break down a new wall with the addition of perfectly nuanced slide guitar strains and pulsing electric bass. The river imagery is more than just hyperbole though, as the band took inspiration in trips to California's Yuba River for much of the first half of the record, working the gently roiling waters into their repertoire with a stretch of drones that float into a sort of nirvanic tranquility. The peace doesn't last forever though as throat parched dunes and dark clouds seem to evoke dust bowl summers scratching at the second side of the album, giving it a bit of a dual tone of dread and ease; darkness and light. As with the majority of their work, Dusted Sessions cannot be pulled apart, its a rise and fall epic of an album, a journey through headphones fraught with tension and testament to the spirit of musicians reaching towards the edges of their craft. Taken as a whole its hard to let go of, until the last note spurs the listener West with a sense that the sun has set but the trip isn't over.

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