Last Thursday night, as I slurped Guinness with pals in the cozy confines of Clandestino on the Lower East Side, the conversation drifted to dust. The band, that is.
As our top lips caught froth with each sip, it became clear all three of us were advocates for the post-punk group hailing from the beachside city of Newcastle, Australia. For all those NYC-side, they’ll be playing on April 9 at Night Club 101.
Gabriel Stove and Justin Teale (vocalists/guitarists), Liam Smith (bassist), Adam Ridgway (guitarist/saxophonist), and Kyle Cherry (drummer) have stacks of synergy. Raised within Newcastle’s supportive live scene, each had ample room to experiment and figure out who they were musically and what sound they wanted to push before joining forces. The first time the name dust rang out was in 2020; however, the five have grown up together since their teenage years.
Six years and two studio albums later, the group now finds itself deep into a lengthy UK/EU tour, with North America to follow alongside fellow Aussies the Bel-Air Lip Bombs.
dust makes music to thrash about to. I picture their shows as gritty seances: a roomful of bodies flailing, shedding the day-to-day, partying without inhibition.
I’ve plucked their 2024 track “New High” from the catalogue, an energetic entry point for the uninitiated. Igniting with thick bass licks and urgent saxophone, Justin rattles off an inner monologue on the duality of solitude: the comfort and discomfort of being alone. Sometimes peaceful, sometimes pained. As Julian explained to me over IG DM’s just yesterday.
“New High is about experiences with loneliness; it can be a real cloud over your head. But there is also a lot of warmth in it; it’s a reflection of both the comfort and complexity that comes with being alone. Moments of listening to Beach House or watching the movie Her, and it hitting you like a wave.”
The lyricism on “New High” reeks of Justin’s thought bubbles. It feels like we’re rattling around inside his skull, watching neurons collide, synapses fire, and half-formed ideas wrestle for control. The wording plays out like a tug-of-war — one moment dreading isolation, the next revelling in it.
“This is where I’ll be all night,
No, I’m sick of being alone,
Without you,
Something to answer,
But the one that I choose,
And the backstabbing lonelies,
Their darkness intrudes.”
Beyond the words, the relentless pace locks you in, amplifying the sensation of being trapped inside a fractured mind. Justin’s opening refrain, “uh oh, uh oh, uh oh”, reads like a signpost for the dilemmas ahead.
Then there’s his vocal tone: gravelly and unmistakably punk – cutting through the gnarled instrumentation. It recalls vocalists such as The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas, Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten, and King Krule.
dust makes music you can’t pin down. Just listen to the disparity between Sky Is Falling (2025) and et cetera, etc (2023), and it becomes obvious. It’s like a cat chasing a laser pointer, all energy, no capture. Pounce into their world via “New High” below.
