Album Review: Gas Lit by Divide and Dissolve

Alongside their music, the pair issue simple tenets in their aim to secure Black futures, liberation and freedom; demand Indigenous sovereignty; uplift people of colour's experiences; and destroy white supremacy. Their latest album, Gas Lit, promises to further protestations, whilst employing their most beautiful, mesmeric and submerging soundscapes to date. Urgency and steadfastness are intrinsic here, as the unrelenting barrage of affecting frequencies and engulfing resonances produce the sonic equivalent of the wolf at the door.

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The music of Australian experimental metal duo Divide and Dissolve is almost entirely instrumental, but their intense sounds channel their rage and indignation for racist power structures and colonialism into a barrage of wordless fury. Full-length album Gas Lit follows several other projects of varying length from the duo, and is their first time working with Ruban Nielson of Unknown Mortal Orchestra as producer. Gas Lit's nine songs offer some of the most polished sounds the band have achieved, upgrading from the rawness of earlier material for a more defined look at their unique approach to heavy music.

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The particularities of how music, especially music without a large commercial platform, is listened to at present will undoubtedly ensure that some people will check out the new Divide And Dissolve album without knowing anything much about the band. They'll find a powerful, impressively unconventional, predominantly instrumental suite, linking sludge and doom metal with a desolate reading of jazz. Should a listener find themselves content with that - let the music do the talking - that is of course their right, but it runs counter to how this Melbourne duo operate, and what confers much of their importance.

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