Loud Noises: The Dirty Nil Find Their Voice On 'Higher Power'

As a concept, rock ‘n’ roll should be increasingly viewed with scepticism. These days, it’s as likely to be the fallback response of a pallid indie boy or guitar music truther, incensed at the preponderance of electronic music in the charts, as it is a life-affirming shot of adrenaline. But every now and again a band makes a case for the old way.

The Dirty Nil are that sort of band. The sort of band that plays with due care and attention to (excess) volume. The sort of band whose music feels like it might crash to a brutal, bloody halt at any moment. The sort of band that likes Kiss and doesn’t care if you know about it. The sort of band that might make you willing to stand up for six strings and a stack.

Sat upstairs at the Black Heart in Camden, a few hours before their first UK show, guitarist Luke Bentham has no trouble distilling what they were going for on their debut album, ‘Higher Power’, which is out at the end of February through Dine Alone. “We wanted to make sure it was cohesive with a snotty, rippin’, aggressive, stadium rock played in a basement kinda feel,” he said.

Without resorting to hyperbole, this record is huge. Produced by the band - Bentham, drummer Kyle Fisher and bassist Dave Nardi, with whom Bentham shares yelling duties - plus Shehzaad Jiwani and Adam Bentley, it sounds like the moment Godzilla decides a skyscraper is looking at him funny. It sludges up classic rock riffs with spiteful bursts of punk energy, allowing the melodic shimmer of Friends In The Sky and Violent Hands to sandwich the furious Lowlives.

“We wanted to have these periods of unrelenting skullfucking and then break it up,” Bentham said. “We had these songs that were different from the rest of the catalogue: Friends in the Sky, Bury Me At The Rodeo. Same with Fugue State, the 45 second Dave ripper. We wanted to make sure they weren’t just thrown together in a haphazard ‘here’s all the songs’ way. The same discretion we applied to the arrangements of the songs we applied to the assembly and sequencing. It’s under 30 minutes so in some ways we wanted it to be like one long song that flows.”

For all its rousing, slightly haphazard noise, ‘Higher Power’ is the latest in a line of carefully planned moves. ‘Fuckin’ Up Young’, their first 7”, arrived in 2011, five years after their formation, and ushered in a steady stream of short-form releases, including the ‘Smite’ 10” and ‘Cinnamon/Guided By Vices’, which was put out by Fat Wreck Chords. This deliberate pattern was driven by a lack of cash, which is a familiar tale, but also by a lurking sense of ambition. Bentham admits that the band didn’t want their first full-length to be an exercise in screaming into the void.

The process also got rid of some preconceptions and strengthened their resolve when it came to making a record that could loosen fillings at 30 paces. The three are gear nerds and that is reflected by their strict adherence to a blueprint that they settled on prior to entering the studio. They wanted it to sound live and drive home the brazen qualities possessed by many of the greatest power trios, something that’s helped by Nardi slinging bass power chords that might once have tickled Lemmy’s fancy.

“We’d gone into the studio to do these 7”s and people had talked us down from ideas we had: ‘No, I’m more comfortable recording guitars with these little amps. I don’t want to use your amp.’ We ended up being disappointed with the results,” Bentham said. “This time we were very hard headed. I wanted to use overblown, stadium equipment. Use live gear for a recording even though people didn’t want us to: ‘Too loud, can’t do that.’ Well, we’re fucking paying you, so set up the mics and let’s do it. We had a lot of time to work on our ideas and go over our past mistakes of listening to other people. For better or for worse we wanted to make the record we wanted to make.

“Part of the concept of the recording was to basically capture what I feel to be our strongest asset: our live show. We didn’t want to have these big wall of sound vocals. We were super serious about doing single vocal tracks so that there was rawness to it and emotion, vulnerability. If you bring the vocals down a little bit you can make the guitars, bass and drums sound louder. If you have this dominating vocal then you can’t really sound that loud. We wanted it to be us playing our best night at a packed basement with a few embellishments here and there.”

The title, then, must be an allusion to the healing power of loud noises in confined spaces, right? In part, maybe, but there’s more to it than that. Much of the record was written in 2014, after the band toured the US for the first time. While there, Bentham began to notice the not-so-subtle use of religious propaganda in everyday life. They’re not turning any crosses upside down, but allusions to those battering ram tactics form a noticeable undercurrent. Also, the title stuck to the plan: go big.

“I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a major album already called that,” Bentham laughed. “This is the stupidest, dumbest, biggest title and I can’t believe someone hasn’t taken it already. So, there was that. But there are some songs that scrabble at the lower slopes of sincerity. Friends in the Sky, there’s some intended sincerity there and the Rodeo song the same thing.

“There was one picture I remember, a  fucking helicopter with Jesus hanging out of it with a machine gun and a tank behind it. It was like ‘Are you on God’s side?’ or something. I was just fucking, maybe mean-spiritedly, fascinated with all this stuff. It was such a fucking circus. There’s that tongue-in-cheek religious referencing. We wanted to be snotty but not make it our dominant dialogue.”

Following a run of shows across Germany, the Dirty Nil will soon head out with Restorations and Creepoid in the US and, briefly, Canada. It’s an interesting bill. You have three rock bands from different points on the spectrum and three bands knocked into shape by their respective punk scenes. They bring a DIY, gritty attitude to some of rock’s more sweeping, technically-involved motifs, whether that’s Restorations’ Springsteen x Mogwai power or Creepoid’s beautifully bummed out reading of shoegaze. The Dirty Nil are, like the star-spangled shirt Bentham trades his Single Mothers hoody for prior to hitting the stage, the wild cards.

“For a long time in my life, as a guitar player or enjoyer of music and writer, I was afraid of those big stadium rock archetypes,” he said. “But at some point I began to enjoy them. Ace Frehley is one of my fucking heroes because he’s just a complete jackass who fell ass-backwards into being a guitar hero. I developed a strange fascination with cheesy stadium rock and it started to creep into what I do as a guitar player. It informed some of our writing. Bands like the Replacements and stuff taught me to embrace all facets and corners of rock ‘n’ roll. It made me embrace Kiss with the same open arms as Minor Threat. Just because cool people have written it off doesn’t mean it’s not fucking sweet.”

'Higher Power' is out on February 26 through Dine Alone.

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