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Dumb Hole: Bravest Of The Galaxy
Dumb Hole Bravest Of The Galaxy CD Album Review

Dumb Hole: Bravest Of The Galaxy

Industrial/Disco/Hard Rock
3.0/5.0

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Schaf Records
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 23.11.2016

Maybe, very simply, my curiosity got the best of me. You know how that can go sometimes, or what it might get you into. Who would possibly name their band Dumb Hole? It doesn't quite have the ring of, say, U2 or Bon Jovi. But it did get my attention. But if you're going to name your band Dumb Hole, something totally ridiculous, why not take it the logical step further. Call yourselves Dumb Ass or maybe Ass Hole. Maybe there's just some Swedish word play that I'm not getting. Crazy Swedes, after all they gave us that international musical phenomena ABBA. I can hear the announcer in the packed arena, "Please welcome from Sweden, Dumb Hole!" Bravest Of The Galaxy is their first album.

Dumb Hole Band Photo

Dumb Hole

Okay, so putting sarcastic humor and/or casting aspersions aside, who or what is Dumb Hole and what kind of music do they play? First, the band is two guys, Leonardo Guzman and Magnus Almqvist, playing drums and guitars. Sorry, I couldn't find out who plays what. One thing that can be said about the Dumb Hole guitarist, looking at the video below, he has some rig, plenty of pedals and processors. Yet, even with all that fancy stuff, there nary a guitar solo to be found within

As for their sound, my first best description goes something like this. Dumb Hole sounds like a mixture of early Eighties New Wave and Nineties Industrial, then wrapped in a rock groove, molded with some metal heaviness, and then tested in a French discotheque to get a dance groove. Though not without melody, the apparent most important elements for Guzman and Almqvist is rhythm and groove to generally keep you moving while wrapping you in a wall of sound. Yet I wonder if they can pull it off, consistently, in a live context. If you listen to both the studio version of Somebody and the live version below, the latter definitely does not have depth and density of the former, at least to these ears.

I hesitate to say that Dumb Hole is something new or novel. (Well, the name is definitely novel.) But their music was a bit outside my musical box of usual suspects. Cool artwork too. It may be of some interest to you.

Dumb Hole - Somebody


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The Bottom Line

I hesitate to say that Dumb Hole is something new or novel. (Well, the name is definitely novel.) But their music was a bit outside my musical box of usual suspects. It may be of some interest to you.

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