EARTH TONGUE - Dungeon Vision

The duo made up of Gussie Larkin (guitar and vocals) and Ezra Simons (drums and vocals), originally from Wellington but now based in Berlin, has spent years crafting a fairly distinctive sound: a blend of psychedelic garage, occult doom and high-voltage fuzz rock.

With "Dungeon Vision", their third studio album, this formula isn't overturned but taken to a more clearly defined level of maturity. Some of the credit certainly goes to the shared production with Ty Segall, a figure who over the years has become synonymous with abrasive fuzz and garage spirit. Recorded in just ten days in Los Angeles, the album retains a surprisingly organic feel: many tracks were cut essentially live, without excessive digital overdubbing. The result is a direct, raw sound in which the physical energy of the performances remains intact.

From the very first bars, one of the band's most evident qualities emerges: the ability to turn a simple riff into a hypnotic device. The title track opens the record with a wall of guitar and unsettling vocal harmonies, immediately introducing the album's imagery. The lyrics help build a coherent scenario made of ruined castles, watchtowers and underground corridors, conjured up in tracks like "Demon Cam" and "Watchtower". More than mere fantasy suggestions, these visions end up taking on a symbolic dimension: the dungeon often becomes a metaphor for mental states marked by isolation, paranoia and loss of control.

The album alternates between more aggressive moments and atmospheric passages. "Flashlight" and the aforementioned "Watchtower" proceed like heavy, almost ritualistic marches, while Ezra Simons's drumming maintains an elastic tension that allows Gussie Larkin's guitar to expand without losing its cohesion. Amid this dark landscape, more contemplative openings emerge, such as "Body Of Water", where natural imagery and acoustic elements introduce a rare moment to catch one's breath. Eyes, lights and visions recur throughout, culminating in tracks like "Silver Eye", where a sense of fatalism and the intensity of the riffs bring the album back to its most disorienting atmosphere.

If one really wants to pinpoint a flaw, it might lie in the overall length: twelve tracks risk making the experience feel slightly redundant at times. Still, the strength of the riffs and the energy of the performances more than make up for this abundance. "Dungeon Vision" thus comes across as a sonic journey through a dark, fantastical imagery, where fuzz, psychedelia and theatricality coexist without too many compromises. A record that doesn't necessarily reinvent the genre, but still manages to captivate.

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03/04/2026