Dig Lazarus – Don’t Threaten Me With A Good Time
Release Date: 15th October 2021
Label: Self Released
Pre-Order
Genre: Hard Rock
FFO: Wayward Sons, The Virginmarys, Those Damn Crows, Stone Gods.
Review By: Paul Franklin
Dig Lazarus are a rock band from Nuneaton, England. Having met as teenagers, the band quickly gelled and have spent the past few years honing their sound in venues across the UK supporting the likes of The Virginmarys, The Brew, Idlewar, Crobot, Massive Wagons, The Amorettes, as well as a slot at Camden Rocks Festival, and more. Don’t Threaten Me With A Good Time is the follow up to their 2019 EP ‘Figure It Out’. Recorded and produced with Dave Draper (The Wildhearts), DTMWAGT is the culmination of nearly 10 years of playing and writing music together, and features songs from across this entire period — (Dexter was probably the first song the boys ever wrote, whilst still fresh-faced college students).
The above is taken from the press release, now it’s my turn to give my view. However, that may be a bit tricky, as unfortunately I’m struggling to find something to say. It’s not a bad album, just remarkably unremarkable. I must have listened to it 5-6 times in the last few days and honestly, I couldn’t tell you how any of the tracks go.
Have you ever experienced that feeling of finding yourself somewhere and not remembering how you got there? You know you’re in a different place to where you started, so time must have passed and you’re at the end of your journey, but the middle bit is just a haze? Well that was my experience listening to DTMWAGT. I had pressed play at the start of the opener Sermon (a short introductory address delivered by Jesse Hughes from Eagles of Death Metal), then a while later as the final strains of Time Froze where dying away, I realized that the entirety of the album had completely passed by, and not a single riff, melody or vocal had stuck in my head.
The songs (and if I’m honest the singer’s voice) just seem to lack character. Their sound is reminiscent of late 90’s, early 00’s Brit alt-rock. Feel has a slight feel of Kerbdog, but only the merest brush of the back of the hand in passing, certainly not copping a proper handful. It’s the same with the rest of the tracks, none of them ever truly kick it up a gear and give you a memorable hook to hang onto.
I really hope that this is a band that can take it to another level in a live setting, and that’s where they can give these songs a bit more oomph! They are due to head out on the road with The Virginmarys soon, but at present if DTMWAGT was the soundtrack to a road trip it would be one in the middle lane of the M1 with the cruise control set at a steady 72mph (just ever so slightly rebellious, without any real threat), without even the promise of a stop at the services for a Greggs sausage roll and a can of Vimto.
(2.5 / 5)
