Native New Zealander Dion Lunadon has been known since moving to America in 2009. His raucous, energetic rock & roll that he’s been making since the early 90s has brought him to release his debut solo self-titled album Dion Lunadon via Agitated Records.
The 11 track album combines Lunadon’s primal punk impulses and garage rock sounds with his artier inclinations. While there is no shortage of hard-hitting punk ragers and paint-peeling guitar noise, all 11 tracks have different feelings. Every track brings back the original, straight out of London punk sound. Each track is short and vastly different than the last.
Dion Lunadon was recorded over a three-month period in Brooklyn during a short break in touring with A Place To Bury Strangers.
Lunadon had a rush of inspiration in the form of a creative spasm. This brought the impulse to make a batch of songs and do it then and there. The result was a huge leap from his work in APTBS and drew more influence from bands like Toy Love, The Gun Club and New Zealand unknowns Gestalt and Supercar.
Clearly erupting from the same wild source, Dion Lunadon is a fiery array of an album that flies in several directions at once. While the album is far more spontaneous that anything Lunadon’s other bands have done, his urge for creative freedom has proven to be rewarding for listeners.
The album features Robi Gonzalez (from APTBS) on drums and Blaze Bateh (from Bambara) on select track. A few tracks, including “Com/Broke,” were mixed by Chris Woodhouse.
“A spunky cut whose jarring guitars take a page from punk acts like Toy Love and The Gun Club, it finds the APTBS member shreddin’ with a brash sense of both fun and all-out energy” – Consequence of Sound
With tracks like the speedy, blistering opening “Insurance, Rent and Taxes” to the simmering motorik rhythm of “Hanging by a Thread” which isn’t near as fast and frantic. There’s even more melodic garage pop anthems such as “Com/Broke” that was fittingly release as a 7″ by the group’s Infinity Cat label in 2016.
Tracks like “Reduction Agent” features mounds of trippy psychedelic echo and vocals loosely informed by hip-hop. “White Fence” is a straightforward, garage rock burst while “Ripper” is 90 seconds of psychobilly freak out, complete with a blazing harmonica solo.
“Move” starts out as a disorientating piece of industrial sludge and then kicking into fast and furious garage rock. The album ends with “No Control,” a track with a smooth, slow and steady kick drum and airy bass guitar pulse that eventually workings in a twangy surf guitar adding layers on top of layers of catastrophic guitar noise with brain-scrambling distortion.
Dion Lunadon – TRACKLISTING
01. Insurance , Rent and Taxes
02. Reduction Agent
03. Fire
04. Com/Broke
05. Hanging By A Thread
06. Move
07. Eliminator
08. Howl
09. Ripper
10. White Fence
11. No Control
Lunadon is best known for being in groups such as garage rock revivalists, the D4, to the New York-based wall-of-noise rockers A Place to Bury Strangers. While he is still an active member of APTBS, the self-titled solo debut is clearly an expression of everything Lunadon has wanted to do musically.
Keep up with Dion Lunadon and all his projects: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Soundcloud | Bandcamp
