Though it's been long awaited by those in the know, Dayzed's first record seems to come at just the right time.
The weather is warming, golden hour light prickles our cheeks and there’s that sense that we’re staring down the barrel of a lazy, sweltering summer.
Packed with washed-out walls of guitar, dizzying riffs, and reverb-laden vocal drawls, it’s the kind of record that just begs to be played while driving solo down a winding coastal road, salt and rubber in the breeze, en route to some uncertain future.
Dayzed Wake Up The Sun Album Launch
- September 29
- Old Bar
- With support from Mature Themes and Dog Door
- Tickets on sale now
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The album’s full-bodied confidence doesn’t betray its humble beginnings. Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Josh Prendergast spent four years carefully assembling the record from the bedrooms and band rooms of various Victorian sharehouses, teasing audiences with singles along the way.
Perhaps what remains of the DIY recording set-up is a sense of lo-fi charm. Over nine songs, Dayzed takes listeners on a sonic journey, bringing together steady shoegaze guitar drones with upbeat alt-rock and melodic mass appeal.
Wake Up The Sun sees Prendergast branch out from his typically solitary production style. Melbourne-based painter and musician Tinieka Page adds bassline and vocals, her feather-soft voice juxtaposing with Prendergast’s baritone notes in the record’s most potent moments.
Though the lyrics are blurred beneath the layers of sound, the glimpses we do get are delivered with a sense of drowsy apathy. Concise yet universal, they echo feelings of love and loneliness with a touch of cautious optimism.
“Finding it hard to do it all again” repeats throughout Quicksand, while Tunnel Vision portays a nagging confusion: “Tell me how I feel right now / Because I don’t want to know / I’m rolling on forever now.”
Ebbing and flowing like a white-washed tide, Wake Up The Sun is a whirring and precise debut.
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This article was made in partnership with Dayzed.
