ALBUM REVIEW: Dealing With Damage – Use The Daylight
(Little Rocket Records)
Dealing With Damage are a DIY post-punk band from London who formed in 2015, and Use The Daylight is their second album.
Written and recorded mid-pandemic with all the attendant challenges, it’s the follow-up to 2019’s debut Ask The Questions.
Ed Wenn (vocals and guitar), Andy Myers (guitar and vocals), Paul Grier (bass) and James Sherry (drums) have all played in other bands, so bring a host of influences to the table.
They have shared stages with the likes of Soulside, Moving Targets, Messthetics, Diaz Brothers, Danger!Man and Ruts DC among others.
The standout track is the lead single, John’s Gone, a tribute to John Hannon, the producer they began making the record with, before he died suddenly in 2021.
You can sense the sadness as Ed sings: “John’s gone. Too soon gone/We can’t ask John/We wanted you to record our song …We wanted you to have this song; from us to you.”
Pat Collier took over production duties, and has helped the band deliver a much broader collection of sounds and styles than their debut album, which was part old school 70s UK punk and part 80s US hardcore.
There’s a big departure from what DWD have done before right away, as the album opens with an acoustic song, Sunrise, featuring guest vocals from the Steve Ignorant Band’s Carol Hodge.
Collaborators
She’s the first of several collaborators who appear on Use The Daylight – another change to what the band have done before. The album also closes with a similar piece called Sunset.
It’s back to service as usual with track two, Walking Backwards Into The Future, which reminds me very much of the excellent MC16. It’s about juggling everyday life with being in a band, and realising as you reach middle age that even though music might not make you famous, “if it connects in some small way then take that”.
Instrument is a very personal song for Ed, about bringing up his autistic son, while letting him find his own way in life, and concluding “I dream one day of being obsolete”.
Things get all political in Bigots vs The Mad Professor, a short, sharp hardcore blast about how racism trickles down from right-wing leaders. It would have fit nicely onto the first album.
The strident Rinse Repeat Rinse, about how divisive, disruptive figures can upset society, is bristling with anger as Ed sneers: “See no evil/Hear no evil/Do lots of evil.”
We Make Bombs To Feel Safe is another standout track, about how mankind is, by turns, superbly innovative and stunningly stupid. It’s a brooding mid-tempo song influenced by Fugazi, and a good example of what Ed means when he says “We had to learn to play quietly on this album.”
Hardcore rant
My favourite collaboration is the hardcore rant Letter From Yootha, a co-write with London ‘menopause-core’ trio Yootha Today, about the changes experienced by women as they enter middle age. You can almost feel the despair as they ask: “When will I come out the other side/And feel like myself again?”
First, They Ignore You was inspired by lockdown, and is about the importance of protest, and not giving up, while Seek Shelter urges everyone to be better informed, while checking your sources in this age of post-truth news.
There are more strident guitars on Write It Down, which urges creative types to capture their inspirational ideas before they forget them, and the album closes out with the superfluous ‘skit’ May I Help You? before the acoustic closer Sunset, which bookends things nicely.
Use The Daylight doesn’t have quite the same flow as the first album, but that’s down to both shifts in style and the fact it’s been handled by two producers. It’s still very worth your time though. 7.5/10.
- Use The Daylight is available on vinyl and digital from Dealing With Damage’s Bandcamp page HERE.
