Deep in the 90’s Duster pioneered a sound that established them as legends in the slowcore genre. Producing their own music on vintage equipment and 8-track cassette recorders, they established themselves with a lo-fi sound that modern musicians could only hope to encapsulate. For years the band was inactive, proving them as a 90’s legend and innovative force of the original lo-fi and slowcore scene. Time warp twenty years into the future, and the band has returned in full force by touring North America, trending on TikTok and maintaining nearly five million monthly listeners on Spotify alone.
With various albums released after returning from hiatus, Duster released their seventh studio album “In Dreams” on Aug. 29. The album features 13 tracks over a 43 minute, seven second runtime.
“In Dreams” opens with the track “Quiet Eyes,” a song very reminiscent of their debut album “Stratosphere.” The song plays out a melancholic riff, followed by very consistent and impressive vocals from the lead, Clay Parton. The track is a perfect example of what you could expect from an early Duster demo, only modern.
Further in the album, tracks like “Cosmotransporter” are reminiscent of the space-rock sound from some of the band’s earlier works, like “Transmission Flux.” With each song taking inspiration from the different eras of Duster, “In Dreams” reminisces their previous album, “Remote Echoes,” where it felt like a loose compilation of newly completed demos. Luckily, the album has a cohesiveness of exploring old themes while modernizing them with a significantly higher fidelity sound.
While the album had decent tracks and feels like a true Duster album, there is nothing that makes the album stands out. It does not bring any revolutionary concepts to the genre or spin Duster in any new directions — it is simply another slowcore, slacker rock album, and that is fine. There is nothing bad in the album, but for being the release right before their next tour it does leave something to be desired.
