2023 may be the best musical year of the decade thus far.
March 2nd 2023
DAMN! 2023 may end up being the music year of the 2020's-
ONE THING BEFORE WE START!: I HAVE A NEW FONT!!! Its Chirp. Why Chirp You Ask? Well my friends, its because Chirp is the Twitter font. Twitter is where I posted the review of Dopamine's first single, Sorry, where I posted my hot takes about albums, songs, artists, and bands, and etcetera, big and small. Twitter IS the font of Arcane, at least until I either monetize and can't use it, or make a new font to replace it for artistic reasons. Everybody who has so much liked a tweet where I posted about a review, I LOVE YOU, THANK YOU.
We have, at last count, albums from Anti - Flag, Måneskin, New Found Glory, Paramore, Pierce The Veil, You Me At Six, Skrillex (I mention because its his best guest artist lineup in years), a deluxe album from Linkin Park, All Time Low (if they dont get cancelled), FUCKING FALL OUT BOY, Nothing Nowhere, Waterparks, Crown The Empire (seeing as they didnt get cancelled), Ed Sheeran, Sleep Token (that album is gonna fucking slap), The Used, Ashnikko (If you understand Scene Queen's hype, you'll like her), possibly Palaye Royale, Bring Me The Horizon, Set It Off, and Yungblud. (Orange is havent yet listened, Green means I did, white means unreleased)
But, while this is all well and good, theres a good little Scottish Band that is the firecracker bomb green cherry on top, coming roaring out of 3-5 decades of rock genre's influences on the back of the unicorn hand-painted on the sides of vans flying through the landscape of an AI generated deathcore album cover, and now introduced by a double gravity falls reference cos I'm a nerd, Dopamine.
They have an album on the way, its release date is still unknown but we do know its coming out in 2023, we know its called Deficiency, and you know that despite blowing my years merch budget on a Fall Out Boy pre-order, I WILL be buying a physical CD of that album if they make physical copies!
Dopamine, is about a year old now, they've dropped six singles to date, and I dont think I've been more excited about a new band ever in my life this early in their career (iDKHOW doesnt count because Dallon and Ryan were decades into their respective careers and I wasnt there for the first single Modern Day Cain, so haha).
They slap. They capture the same feelings and vibes as the artists they are inspired by and that their fans love, without aping their style. They are 2005 - 2015 rock, straight up, inspired by every band that makes up the core of my music taste, with notes and elements of everything from the 70's to the 2020's, from glam rock to country, grunge to metalcore, settled into a perfect alt-rock foundation. They single handedly convinced me to give some bands that send you a dm on twitter a chance, after having ignored any and all previous ones as likely not worth my time (a possible error on my part, or maybe I just got lucky with Dopamine)
And now we have the final single before the album drop. It is called Fly, and I will tell you right now, its a 100. Theres no debate, no arguement, it simply is. I LOVE this track. It encapsulates the perfect mix of mid 1990's grunge in its texture, while also being musically akin to mid 2010's scene and alternative rock. If they ever have a lore they'll have to have immortal beings or time travelers or something, because their music defies being tied to any era or even its actuall time period of the 2020's.
This track felt like the same opening of new possibilities as Sorry, it brought that same feeling, of a band thats inspired by the other bands currently rising to fame, and those who are now old enough to pay homage to without being accused of being unoriginal, before their style is everywhere and universally ignored due to an influx of bands looking to capitalize on that style. Hearing Dopamine is like the quantity of pleasant surprise the Summonings funk outro gave all of us, also creating the genre babymakincore, but instead of happening within 5 seconds of realizing the heavy breakdown is a funky sexy groove, it is evenly distributed throughout the song. In essence, I would like to essentially knight Dopamine, and dub their genre Chemicalcore, both in homage to their alt rock genre diversity akin to MCR, but also due to their name and iconography as a band named after a chemical that is sure to fill your brain upon hearing their songs.
Fly employs a masterful mix of acoustic and electric guitar in as pleasing of a blend as its combination of 90's and 2010's sounds, making for a fun listening experience. Its also yet again a wonderful thing to see how Levi sounds more comfortably at ease with delivering even the most powerful of his voals between songs, at this point it sounds simply flawless. If you prefer material like Palaye Royale's - Boom Boom Room Side A, MCR circa Conventional Weapons, and the most current sounds of Pierce The Veil and Black Veil Brides? This will likely become your favourite Dopamine track.
While praising the ending of a Dopamine track has become a bit of a habit of mine, once again I find myself needing to talk about how the songs ends in particular. The ending of this song just screams fun. It goes from a full chorus entwined with some hair raisingly good background vocals and guitar, before then stripping down to just bass, then coming back in for one last blast of guitars and drums before letting the guitats fade out to end the song
I think this one is amazing, they did a great job, and this one really succeeded at the style they were going for on here. Like I said above, another 100 for Dopamine. I cant wait for the album to drop, it's gonna be a fun time when it does.
You can find Dopamine here: https://linktr.ee/Dopamine.Band
And Fly can also be listened to below, I'll put the bandcamp up once its available.
A couple last things before I go.
As there was no place it made sense to mention it in the main review, I'll say it here: The song is 3:38 long, and quite frankly feels like the perfect length
I've decided music rewards will happen at the end of the next year, to give me a full year for any song released any day in that full previous year. So 2022 music awards come out December 31st 2023.
Dopamine has played a couple shows live! If you are in the area and have some time, go catch their next show!
Last thing? I present a tweet or two. I choose to believe it means Self Made music video confirmed and you cant change my mind.
Okay, thats it for now, bye
Tyler|108
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