#ray seraphin

DUM1 orbits the same Bay Area garage rock scene as Dusted favorite Ray Seraphin and like him delivers jagged tunes with whispery choruses, rough-shod rock energy tamped down to a tender murmur. Both artists practice The Jesus & Mary Chain trick of wrapping hoarse voiced melody in feedback-y guitars. This particular project is a solo outing for Mack Narragan of the fuzz-pop outfit CVCC. Or at least it started out that way, with Narragan using the music to help him process loss and grief. From bedroom recording beginnings the band has expanded to include Gracie Malley of The Greasy Gills and Rip Room, Sam Benedetti of The Greasy Gills and Julio Palacios of CVCC.

The music, then, balances a private, personal, even melancholic side with the raucous, good time energies of power pop. Like all the best pop songs, its tunes hover between happy and sad, sweetness and friction. “I know it won’t mend,” Narragan sings, repeatedly and with an air of resignation, but the drums thump, the guitars sway and the music lifts upward. The song refuses to be boxed in by one mood or another. 

A couple of songs stand out from the rest. “Plastic Covers” frames muttering poetry with luminous guitar work, pitched somewhere between R.E.M. and Ultimate Painting, and you can see why the band would want to lead with it as a single. But really, the best cut on the whole disc is lovely, languid “From Here to Sebastia.” Splayed guitar chords linger, the drum beat pushes forward and the melody blows up in little crescendoes of longing. Fanciful lyrics convert fairytale images, but the chorus is anchored in real human ache, “From here to Sebastia…from here to you.”