The long gestating Dissidents / DOVE LP comes as a bittersweet release. It rips and finds both bands in top form. But, it is the last release ever to feature Dissidents / The Pist’s Bill Chamberlain (the nicest guy in punk) who quite sadly passed away just a little bit before the album came out.
Well, Bill departs on a high note. Dissidents’ side of the split is high energy and bold. Bill crashes down with a ringing guitar that walks the line between crust punk smash and post-punk soaring. A certain looseness and hard snap drives the entire release, with Bill’s guitar adding a hot, white light to the charge. What’s most interesting about the release is that despite the woes recited on the side, the songs truck in a certain positive. “No Air” might survey the injustices that are rumbling through USA right now – police brutality, racism, lack of free speech, fascism- “One story ends, another starts /Let’s stab this monster through the heart.”
Main vocalist bounces her lines off a support attack from twin sisters Janine and Nicole of Witch Hunt. At time, the bounce becomes almost poppy, despite the subject matter. A.C.A.C. (“All cops are culpable”) finds the three-prong attack springing with the twins chanting “ACAC! ACAC!” and then Rachel pops back with a sing-songy “all cops are culpable!” The fact is, music is usually most effective from an action level when it is catchy and the crew here likes to get catchy even though the guitar, bass, and drums drive like Antisect.
The release will always have a sad element to it, but also, Bill is now immortalized with one of his most exciting and meaningful releases, and he exits at his height.
DOVE is a great companion to Dissidents. Even though they are from California, there is a heavy element of anarcho-punk influence, with certain nods to Poison Girls and Honey Bane. Opening track “Beyond Speciesism” is an attack on the production of animals as consumables. Further on the anarcho-tip, “Possession” attacks the current administrations war on women and ownership of their own bodies.
The band waves samples between their tracks that sometime are gruesomely ironic and sometimes add support to their messages. Similarly adding to the atmosphere, sometimes the band slides a little goth guitar scream into the music, which makes the message feel huge and important. The lyrics of “A garden” also lean into this colder aesthetic as well.
And that’s really evident throughout the release. Maybe the band feels differently, but they expand on the anarcho-template by weaving in highpoints from the classic rock canon. “D.O.V.E.” has a ringing intro that could fit on a Jefferson Airplabe album or an Animals single. “Wind of revolution,” before it has a slight country honk. Somehow, the band performs daring tricks without making it look like they are trying to be daring. That’s a neat trick.
Splits don’t come more apropos than this. The lyrics hit at a time when they could not be more needed. We’ve heard most of these messages before, but the fact that they are more necessary now, than in say, 1995, or 2005, is depressing- and also justifies why we need these messages louder than ever. All hail Bill.