If you took a quick look at the artwork for their fifth album, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Ontario duo The Dirty Nil had pivoted into a more metallic sound — not entirely out of the realm of possibility, but the darker aesthetic makes sense. This record’s as battered and bruised as they come, a form of therapy for vocalist/guitarist Luke Bentham as much as anything else. With its title lifted from a line in the defiant opening track “Gallop of the Hounds”, The Lash strips back the band’s sound to the essentials.
Bentham is joined on this album by drummer Kyle Fisher, as you’d expect; it’s been those two against the world for nearly 20 years at this point. The studio band’s rounded out by bassist Sam Tomlinson, who’s since left a vacancy…