In our ears today, we’re listening to The Dionysus Effect’s latest single, Darryl. The Dionysus Effect are a New York based rock trio who seem to be making some waves. Formed in 2020 in a basement, The Dionysus Effect are on a mission to bring their listeners an explosion of heavy rock sounds with some extremely unique subject matter.
Darryl is apparently based upon the bestselling book, Darryl; an intriguing story of a cuckold who feels most alive when someone sleeps with his wife! Well, this is a whole new subject matter for us – where’s the soppy love songs we often hear?! As the band say, many artists write songs about subject matter that they are familiar with, or their day jobs, and strangely, as the editor of the book, Darryl, The Dionysus Effect seem to be following that same tradition. Christoph Paul (vocals, bass), Sean Quinn Hanley (guitar), and Brett Petersen (drums) have put together a stunning rock track with two members of the band being professional authors. Lyrically, as we’ve mentioned, a very interesting song, with some unique choices of words and motifs to paint a picture for the listener.
This really is a great rock song. We like how the song starts on just stabs on the rhythm guitar, giving an ominous feeling and letting you know something much bigger is on its way.
The musicianship in this track is astounding. All instruments are very well played. We particularly were mesmerised by the very Slash-sounding guitar solo with some superb playing and great choices of notes.
There’s some lovely presence and attack in the kick drum which works well for a rock song of this style. The ending made us wonder if the drummer wasn’t quite as ready to stop playing as the rest of the band were! Some lovely fills and riffs that just kept on going!
From a production perspective, we’d suggest a little more brightness in the backing track, as the only real brightness in the track is coming from the occasional sibilance in the vocals, meaning that we’re missing out on hearing some of that superb cymbal work to its best effect. We’d suggest boosting the top two octaves to give the track a little more life and brightness. A shelf boost across the low and low mids, especially focussed around 250-300Hz will add a great deal more warmth to the overall track too.
Darryl is the second single from The Dionysus Effect’s debut album. A strong start for a debut, and with this level of musicianship from every member we expect to hear a great deal more from this talented trio.