Dirty Beaches
Badlands

THE REVIEW

Elvis Presley is not dead and I have the proof, he sings with his unmistakable voice on some tracks of the new Dirty Beaches, “Badlands“. Sure, he looks bad but he’s still alive!

Returning to reality, this is a record by Alex Zhang Hungtai aka Dirty Beaches, a Taiwanese expatriate in Canada who presents a crushed, sick rockabilly evidently recorded within the domestic walls with very few resources. The album is divided salomonicamente into two distinct parts characterized by different sounds. In the first 4 tracks, our artist disguises himself as Elvis and, after abusing substances, sings on tracks that draw from Rockabilly standards contaminated by industrial, wave, hypnotic, and psychotic sounds. Exemplary of this first half of the album is the opening piece "Speedway King".

In the second half of the album, the record completely changes register, the sound remains retro but here the atmospheres become romantic, though still subdued and resigned. And it is precisely in this second half of the album that Dirty Beaches sets aside the urge to astonish to best express his talent. "Lord Knows Best" is a hypnotic, romantic, and desperate track at the same time. A piece that would not have looked out of place in the soundtrack of Twin Peaks (or any Lynch film).

Not to mention the ambient and martial closing track “Hotel“, or “Black Nylon”, a piece that could have come from the repertoire of Portishead. The two souls of the album, each with its own beauty, contribute to making this work special. Personally, I appreciate more the romantic and desperate part, but the entire (albeit brief) work is worthy. Now it's up to finding a good producer and waiting to see which of the two outlined paths Alex will follow.

Meanwhile, we will continue to be enchanted by this Badlands.