I first encountered Dingus Khan towards the tail-end of 2011, when my band Fashoda Crisis shared the same bill at a tiny shed-like venue in the beer garden of a pub in Colchester. A ramshackle collection of urchins, oozing charm and sweat in equal measures, they hammered their way through a ferocious and beautiful set; gurns of joy plastered across their cheeky faces throughout. It was obvious they were on the cusp of something very special indeed.
The next few months saw them begin the rapid ascent that has taken in a Steve Lamacq Maida Vale session, a couple of singles on Fierce Panda imprints and rapturously received festival slots at Reading/Leeds, Latitude, Bestival and Southsea, culminating in this, their debut album.
‘Support Mistley Swans’ (a reference to their Manningtree roots) is a cleansing breath of fresh air in an industry polluted by joyless identikit poseurs. We are constantly bludgeoned with the nonsensical theory that guitar music is moribund, but with these ten tracks, Dingus Khan effectively dissolve that ill-informed argument. Here we have an eclectic cocktail of infectious off-kilter guitar hooks and thick, sludgy riffs, underpinned by vocals that veer from fractured delicate beauty to rowdy mob chanting in the blink of an eye.
For the uninitiated, opening track ‘My Body’ serves as the perfect introduction to the joyful world of Dingus Khan, beginning life as a sweet little guitar/vocal ditty before the full arsenal of this multiple drummer sporting eight-piece ensemble is unleashed and they descend into chaotic heavy riffing and animalistic howling.
What follows is an album propelled by exuberant energy and pure bloody cheekiness. The Network referencing ‘Mad As Hell’ blindsides the listener with tempo changes, misdirection and beautifully crafted melodies. It is clear that here we are blessed with a band bursting at the seams with ideas and relishing juxtaposition. Lyrically they often take the mundane and sculpt it into a life-affirming anthem (‘Bought a bag for life and it broke in the shop/Tried to give blood but my blood wasn’t good enough/Need more Iron’). This is never more apparent than on debut single ‘Knifey Spoony’, which kicks off with an incessantly wonky guitar hook, guaranteed to bury itself deep within your subconscious before bursting out at inopportune moments, regaling the listener with a collection of anecdotal lyrics about almost running someone over at a Zebra crossing, swallowing a slug, and insufficient cutlery.
On ‘This Song Hasn’t Got No Words’ they meld Graham Coxon-esque guitar lines with deranged vocal yelping, and throughout the album there is the ghost of Britpop’s finer moments, the odd drop of Blur, a hint of Longpigs’ guitar mangling. But it is the early manic lunacy of Supergrass’ ‘I Should Coco’ that serves as a reference point for standout track ‘Bird in the House’, a sublime mix of controlled feedback, fuzz, vocals stretched to impossible extremes and the inescapably catchy refrain ‘down the footpath keep on walking to the playing fields under the goalposts where I buried all the women’. The track hurtles along at 100 miles per hour in a 30mph zone, before smashing into a demented wall of sound and collapsing into an outro of comedy sobbing.
‘Mistley Swans’ is an album that excretes humour, after repeated listens my grizzled curmudgeonly face aches from contorting itself into an unnatural perma-grin. Dingus Khan display an anarchic wit, revelling in life’s little trivialities. There is not even the faintest whiff of contrivance from this band. The pure unadulterated pleasure these boys get from making music together seeps from the speakers. It is a rare thing to witness a band so content with writing and performing and entirely disinterested in the projection of image.
‘Support Mistley Swans’ is a masterful debut album, and I can only hope that the grind of the music industry doesn’t sap their (seemingly boundless) energy. Fingers crossed they’ll get the chance to record another, because we all need a little more Dingus Khan in our lives.
Dingus Khan release ‘Support Mistley Swans’ on the 22nd October through Label Fandango. They are playing live on Saturday the 13th October at Saks Underground, Southend, before heading out on an extensive tour of the UK throughout October and November.
Posted by Ralph Steadman Illustrationofaman.
