It can be said that musical genres are much like fine wines. Actually, no it can’t, but these two seemingly different entities have one thing in common, they seem to get better as time progresses. Zounds, the sophomore album by aussie quintet Dappled Cities does nothing short of make that statement completely true in every sense of its meaning. Long gone are the days of simple guitar rifts, and three piece bands. The human ear has grown more needy, begging to be slammed by waves and waves of multi-instrumental riffs and tempo changes, and to be honest, Dappled Cities exceeds the want in the most eloquent and beautiful way possible. I’m a firm believer in the fact that every good album should be as simple as a good children’s book with a distinct and noticeable beginning middle and end, and Zounds is up for the Pulitzer. ‘Hold Your Back’ throws open the first page of our proverbial children’s book and greets your ears with a wall of electronic noise and catchy melody, leaving you in a somewhat dazed state. Luckily ‘The Price’ reaches out and catches you right before you think your about to fall out of your chair, and holds you a sound that nothing short of familiar. ‘Wooden Ships’ acts as the hook in the plot that leaves you wanting more, that unexplainable feeling of enticement that is strong enough to break even the strongest of human wills. The album progresses through another 7 songs that seem to harness almost every human emotion, finally coming to rest at the ‘Stepshadows’, which concludes our story with a somewhat happy ending while feeding the human vice of addiction, leaving you wanting more. I am genuinely excited to see what the rest of this year has to offer musically, seeing as Zounds sets the bar pretty high. I tend to consider myself a musical elitist, but this album has done the unthinkable by humbling me with its uniqueness, and I’m ok with that.

-Matt