When I started my end of year list this year I asked my pal Joel from Portland’s Dumpies to share his best of 2025 playlist with me. Several songs caught my attention which I, in turn, went and checked out the albums from which they had come. The one that has quickly climbed up my year end list over the past few weeks is Up Late With by Sydney, Australia’s Dumbells. Featuring Ishka Edmeades aka Teevee Repairman, also of Satanic Togas and sometimes Gee Tee, all of whom/which I am a huge fan but none of whom/which this sounds much like.
This album actually came out last January but since no one at SPB wrote about it when it came out I wanted to give it a very last minute review. Let me take you even further back in time to 2012 when I saw Kyle Thomas aka King Tuff play with Southern California’s Audacity as his backing band. I was already a fan of King Tuff’s first record Was Dead and in turn became a fan of Audacity’s 2nd album Mellow Cruisers from that year. Not to say Dumbells are psychedelic folk or surf punk but some of the melodies- like in the song “Bubbles” for example- remind me of that mid-2000s slacker punk pop, riddled with catchy melodic hooks and good riffs.
The first song sounds like "Something in the Air” by Thunderclap Newman but there’s also some 90s indie rock/powerpop with punk edge. “Mist”, which starts again with a downright classic rock intro, leads into a prog-y instrumental showing us Dumbells aren’t concerned with fitting into any single style or genre. Two members also play in Sydney’s Shrapnel, who released the jangly powerpop album Sedan Crater in January as well(!?) My previous comparison to King Tuff might also explain their cover of hippie rockers NRBQ’s “Not So Hard” which might otherwise have seemed like an odd choice.
As they say, variety is the spice of life. Personally I’ve been consuming a lot of turmeric. It’s been a rough year and I’m happy to see it coming to an end. The amount of music coming out these days can be overwhelming but it’s always nice to be turned on to a new favourite. To be honest this record might have ended up even higher on my list but I don't really like picking favourites- they change continuously- and I’m still not sure I’ll actually finish this review in time. Buy if you’re reading this now I guess I did.
