Dommengang – No Keys (LP Sunset Orange)

On No Keys, Dommengang channel the wailing, psych-rock abandon of their previous work into a lean, dark-edged record colored by loss, change, and the sheer force of growing musicianship. Guitarist Dan “Sig” Wilson, bassist Brian Markham, and drummer Adam Bulgasem have grown closer even as they live and travel ever-further apart, and No Keys captures the raw energy of their moments together, with wailing, improvised blues-rock as unrelenting as it can be tender.

No Keys reflects the sprawl of Dommengang’s spiritual home of Los Angeles; this is music for the late-night drive into the California desert, a real and metaphorical escape for a rootless band always searching for a balance between the city and the rougher expanses of nature. That restless spirit lives in No Keys’ hazy, fuzzed-out guitar and the pure catharsis of Dommengang’s highest riffs, which approach the warm, double-voiced textures of the Grateful Dead or Canned Heat while touching a nerve all their own.
No Keys is rock’s primeval power incarnate—alive and well, even if it’s sometimes living out of its van, without a key to a permanent home.