Dam Gila - "Face The Sun" Album Is Unabashedly Drenched in Pop, Glam and Circumstance

Dam Gila is the moniker and solo project of Yawn front man Adam Gil and he is about to release his second album entitled "Face The Sun" on April 1st. The sounds on this work are overall super lush and well produced. When Slow Burn starts it is a heady experience. It is a serious piece of delicious funky glam with full on theatrical almost burlesque backing vocals and Bowie-ish disco funk guitar sounds. The vox are over modulated and Adam's falsetto is rad. Yeah, the song is a bit over the top production wise (for my taste) but just expect this kind of shiny top notch feel when you (finally) hear this album.

The ever so slow volume ramp of Interlude with wah wah guitars and cavernous backing vocals feels almost spaghetti western-ish. I can imagine it in a Tarantino flick. It is wide cinematic and possessed.  Afterglow has an almost euro pop sound, yes it is that shiny and poppy. I mean for God's sake Adam sings "love is a carousel" and it, in another life, could be an ABBA song. I do like the sound and the execution. In a similar way, Adam goes deep in the pop milieu in the track Love Is A Game and, in fact, I joked on an AP Email video (cold private streaming listen) that this track would make a soundtrack for a Mentos commercial and that is not to denigrate the track at all.

I like songs with a bit of dirt on them. The title track on Face The Sun starts off with a dirty fender Rhodes piano sound. It is a teary beginning and the song eventually shifts into a kind of downtrodden yet hopeful ballad. Some of the lyrics feel a bit formulaic but I cannot die the beauty of the uplifting chorus. A lovely track. Undertow has a heavy pop glam feel and feels the most like the aforementioned Slow Burn. It swings and double times and jams- I thought of T-Rex at times. Cool track.

The first track What Fire has a dancey indie feel. It has a big tent feel. Like a lot of the songs on "Face The Sun" it is kind of sun drenched, pop heavy, all inclusive and free from anger. After just watching a non violent protester at a Trump rally getting scarily beaten down by a Trump supporter maybe this is the kind of light we need at this time.
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Robb Donker

NOTE: Here What Fire below and clips from the album on my AP Email Private Stream First Listen.