Name: Dinosaur Pile-Up
Release: Mona Lisa (Single)
Release Date: Out Now
Website: www.myspace.com/dinosaurpileup
It seems the 90’s revival is pretty popular in most corners of music these days. Which is hardly surprising from a decade which cherry picks the worst and best bits from the 60’s through to the 80’s and claims it as its own. Least we forget it’s also the decade which brought us R Kelly’s Hip-Hopera, Trapped in The Closet, so maybe we’re lucky it’s drawing to a close. Having said that though, the 90’s brought us some pretty great music across the whole spectrum but arguably it was Grunge that caused the biggest stir at the time and was strangely absent from ‘the naughties’. It could be said the emergence of Nu-metal was close enough but then you’d have to make people aware that you are under the impression Nu-metal was a good thing. Thankfully Dinosaur Pile Up over look that embarrassing blip on the music history radar and take their influence for new single Mona Lisa from the real thing.
The British three-piece ,which call indie label Friends Vs Records their home, offer a follow up to first single Birds and Planes with singer/guitarist Matt Bigland explaining how the track came to fruition, “Mona Lisa is about having no money, no time, living on instant noodles, with no heating. I was sitting in my room surrounded by crap and just thought ‘Hey, this is kind of like trying to paint my ‘Mona Lisa.” A pretty abstract analogy where its not really clear if Matt is comparing himself to all round best-at-everything-ever Leonardo da Vinci (the artwork for forthcoming album Growing Pains does feature Matt alone grasping his guitar and looking sternly into the distance adding a slight amount of fuel to the fire that he might like himself, a lot) or that there is a certain amount of rough with the smooth when trying to pursue artistic prevalence?
The song opens with Matt and his guitar showing a stripped down peak into what to expect. The deliverance is smooth and the melody dips and steers along with the guitar quite well sounding very much like Lagwagon frontman Joey Cape in his Bad Astronaut days both musically and vocally. Then bursts in Harry John’s bass, as Mike Shiels completes the appearance with a symbol heavy smash through the drum kit for a full band musical recount of the intro. A slick harmony overlays a restrained chorus itching to lead into an aggressive stomp and spit from the entire band. Except for a few typical (but not really in a bad way) ‘grunge/rock’ riffs placed between chorus and bridge the song keeps up its attitude with the guitar remaining buzz sawed and the drums stomping through with a respectful display that knows it doesn’t have to do anything too fancy. Bass wise it’s obvious that the guitar is leading the show so it really only has to show up and it’s going to do a good job, which it does.
Lyrically, you shouldn’t expect any life changing philosophy with lines like ‘If I’m old I’ll die/ and when I die I’m old’ and ‘all I need is some money/God knows I’ve tried so damn long’ but they fit well into the sound and feel of the song and its quite clear the band are not trying to paint a fake personality of themselves being tough rather than just being normal guys with a few things annoying them. The song as a whole fit’s somewhere between The Lemonheads at their angriest and Nirvana at their least caring. It’s just the right side of the pop/rock scale to make an impression on the general public who ‘like’ music whilst being able to garner the attention of those in the scene who have a passion for it. A very strong effort indeed.
Reviewer: Jordan Daniel
