DeWolff / The Dust Coda
London The Black Heart
Dutch masters echo the great hard rockers of the 70s.
John Drake looks like he might punch your face off. For the leader of a band that’s only a couple of years old, The Dust Coda frontman possesses a striking mix of confidence and arrogance, which manifests itself in an intense, confrontational stare. He uses this to put the fear of God into any audience member who might not respond to his band, but tonight’s audience is on side, and as they swagger through a selection of songs from last year’s self-titled debut album, it seems The Dust Coda are bound for bigger rooms.
Drake is a blues-rock belter with a voice that sits somewhere in the middle of a complicated Axl Rose/ Bon Scott/Chris Cornell Venn diagram, and be-quiffed guitarist Adam Mackie is his perfect foil. The pair have an obvious on-stage chemistry, whether they’re rolling gently through the righteous ballad Sweet Love Is Gone, romping towards the climax of glam rock stomper When The Tide Comes In, or grinding a salacious path through Weakness, a song that sounds like the greatest Temperance Movement single The Temperance Movement never released. Minor technical irritations aside, the set isn’t far short of a triumph.
DeWolff are a very interesting proposition. A big name in their native Netherlands, they’re essentially a new band for UK audiences, but they’ve arrived full-formed. More than a decade and seven albums into their career, they know exactly what they’re doing, and what they’re doing appears to have just landed on a flight direct from 1973 without picking up any inconvenient baggage along the way.
They look the part (if the part is understudying Stillwater in Almost Famous), and they sound like Deep Purple by way of the American south. The band have said that new album Thrust represents a heavier, more modern side to their sound, but this show feels like pure throwback. Singer/guitarist Pablo van de Poel tosses in enough ‘alright baby’s and ‘oh mama’s to have Robert Plant checking the statute of limitations, and extended instrumental breaks are de rigueur.
If all that sounds like it might be tilting towards parody, fear not. The band’s sound is crafted with such precision – and with such affection for the source material – that’s it’s difficult not to fall in love with them. For a start, they’re obviously enjoying themselves. Organ player Robin Piso spends the entire set with a look of manifest ecstasy on his face, as if he’s undergoing a profound religious experience, and van de Poel takes every opportunity to clamber closer to the audience as he unwinds another solo. And they play brilliantly. Set opener Big Talk rumbles with malevolence, Medicine sounds like the second cousin of Led Zep’s Since I’ve Been Loving You, and Love Dimension is an alluring chunk of psychedelia. They make an astonishing amount of noise for a threepiece, with the kind of ability to effortlessly shift pace and direction that comes only after years of effort.
If there’s one downside, it’s that while Pablo has a decent, soulful voice, he doesn’t have the raw power or vocal charisma of an Ian Gillan or a Ronnie Van Zant. That’s asking a lot, but sometimes it’s what DeWolff need to cut through the cleverness and stamp some real authority on the songs. When van de Poel says: “For eleven years we’ve been trying to come up with a chorus you’ll sing along to,” it’s only natural to wonder if he thinks so too. But let’s be fair: if you’re going to set a high bar – and DeWolff really have – you’re not always going to clear it.