An Intense and Spacious New Album from Dramatist

A new album release from Dramatist just dropped, and this record encompasses and embodies so many different forms of cinematic, heavy rock, hinting towards post-punk but leaning war on the alternative rock side of things, always keeping a semi-vast underbelly and delivering this big Sonic presence.

The Wasting Words album definitely comes through with waves of intensity and is a record that you should be listening to all the way through from start to finish, all in one shot. This is mainly because when you do it this way you get the full experience.

What's cool about this record is that a lot of the songs tell stories, and although I don't really sense the concept album side of things, the storytelling is really brilliantly done. Some of the lyrics can definitely be pretty descriptive and, again, the levels of intensity come crashing down pretty heavily when they want to.

There's a semi-post hardcore element to how they write their songs and how the tones of the guitars come through, at times using augmented chords, really driving backbone, and the drumming really pushes this thing through the roof.

"Black Hole" is the first track and works as an amazing introduction to the album itself because it gives you some of the staples that you're going to hear throughout the full release.

As I just mentioned, the drumming really drives this project. I feel like everyone is on the same level in terms of their energy and there's a lot of synergism going on, but I feel like a lot of the band pushes off of that drummer's energy so that everything pushes the envelope to the maximum.

Having said that, nothing is really super over the top, but you do get a lot of heavy elements to the songwriting and the sound that you hear.

This first track gives you a pretty intense introduction and then sort of opens up into a more spacious feel with clean guitars and vocals that come in giving semi-emotional performances and this is where you start really paying attention to the lyrics.

This first single really displays how they're able to build a song. They really write songs that grow. They sort of evolve in a certain sense. Even though this one came in with a high impact, it sort of broke back down, got calmer and then exploded back again.

You can tell these guys really pay a lot of attention to the arrangements of their songs and that's probably why the record comes through the way it has.

Songs like "Disappointed" are the ones that tell the stories in great depth, putting you from a certain perspective, and also give you this semi-post-punk kind of aesthetic.

Now, the songs aren't post-punk, again, their post-rock, hardcore, emo, alternative rock, and more, all sorts of combined.

However, I do hear that classic and vintage '90s post-punk influence in the tones of their instruments.

This track displays amazing bass guitar work that really pushes the song along and becomes the imperative element that gives it life.

The vocals do an outstanding job of sort of putting you in a different headspace, giving off sort of intense but very melodically driving segments that pull you onto the track really well.

This is another one that sort of grows and evolves a little bit and feels a bit vast and expansive. You hear elements of reverb effect on certain instruments giving that distant feel, and then it explodes into a high impact, more driving tone later on.

One of my favorite tracks on the record is probably "Glasgow Nights", and this is because I grew up with certain 90s and early 2000s heavy-handed emo rock kind of bands.

This track captures that kind of aesthetic really well. I got bouts of nostalgia listening to it. It's about how the guitars are performed, how the vocals are performed, the time signature coming from the drums, and again that bass guitar tone.

All of these things come together in a particular way and give it that classic feel.

I'm talking about beds like Thursday, Cursive, or At The Drive-In. Bands that not a lot of people know or know about, but if you were sort of into the underground stuff, you know all about those records.

These kinds of bands and that kind of music was a staple at the time. Especially in alternative music. Yes, you had to read about them in magazines or listen to a song on an underground sort of Indie radio station, but you found them and when you did, you would go and try and download the songs off Napster or LimeWire.

I just found it really refreshing to hear a band that captures that kind of feel and aesthetic so incredibly well.

"Loathing" is an example of a track that displays more of that almost theatrical feel. The vocals are doing this great melody line and even in the verses you get caught up in them.

The guitar tone is clean but not completely clean. Even when the guitars are clean, they're performed and in a heavy-handed manner.

Brings intensity to the music.

A lot of the stuff is emotionally driving. There is emotion behind a lot of these songs and because of that, I feel like they came from real places, and it gives a lot of the music a certain kind of authenticity.

This was a record that hit pretty hard for me and you can tell it was something that was a pure passion project for this band.

This is a band that loves their craft.

So, stop reading and start listening because this record is not one that you want to miss.

Remember where you heard it first.

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