[ATTENDED: April 11, 2026] dust
There are a few bands called dust. This band is from Newcastle, Australia. They’re a five piece with drums, bass, two guitars and a saxophone! And they were amazing.
They fall into that post-rock scene with roaring guitars and vocals that are kind of spoken, kind of shouted. Main lead vocalist Justin Teale has an understated style that relies on subtly sung melodies and occasional loud grunts. Drummer Kye Cherry plays fast and hard and bassist Liam Smith was a key component to the songs–whether keeping the low end with the rest of the song or playing independently–a rhythm of his own–he really held the songs together.
The songs are propulsive, moving along at a good clip with their singer kind of speak singing (in the vein of Fontaines D.C. but less accented). The biggest surprise came when Ridgway played saxophone–it wasn’t just saxophone solos–although New High does have notes dotting the song–the sax was manipulated and distorted, running through the songs underneath rather than as a main melody. I loved the end of the song where the band.
Then a song like Swamped has high octane stars and stops with jagged guitars and a rumbling bass. Just Like Ice opens with a simple punky bassline and then the whole band crashed in with guitars and sax. It was in this song that second guitarist Gabriel Stove traded off vocal lines with Justin. His style was similar but different enough to add a really cool sonic style to the voices. I enjoyed their back and forth a lot on this song.
Things changed up even further with Trust U See which opened with a slow threatening pulsing bassline and bleats of sax making a very noir-sounding vibe. It was even more so when Teale’s spoken vocals came over the top. The slow down in the middle was just long enough that the tension built even more.
Another surprise came when Stove sang lead vocals on Restless. His style isn’t that much different but he is more singing than spoken and his timbre is pretty different so that when Teale added his vocals toward the end, it sounded amazing. One of the more amusing things about this set was that when the lead singer/guitarist leaned forward, he almost hit the guy in the front of the stage in the head (about ten times) but the singer’s eyes were closed so he never noticed. (more…)
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