Review by Dillon Crader
OKAY is Dowsing’s third full-length record, released through Asian Man Records. I was very excited to see what Dowsing’s first full length in almost three years (aside from their demo releases and splits) would sound like.
The first noticeable thing on OKAY is the quality of the music. It seems that Dowsing went with a very well-produced sounding record compared to their past releases, which have more low quality recordings. Though OKAY seems to lose that “raw emo” feeling form their previous releases, it also just shows how much the band has grown and matured in a positive way. You can’t just always create the same sound and songs over and over again, because it will get tiring. That’s why I was very content to hear the new sound Dowsing had to offer, all while still sticking to their roots.
The second track, “Getting Better” is a surprisingly strong track, with an opening line that will hook you right away. “Getting Better” has really deep and emotional lyrics that are very easy to connect to. The tones on this song just set the mood as well, between the yelling vocals, drummer William Lange hitting the high hats in the verse, or just the bass and snare hits with the harmonic vocals on top – “Getting Better” crushes it.
After I had listened to the album a couple more times, I kind of realized that OKAY, at times really reminded me of Transit’s older music. I think this was one of the reasons why I this record clicked the first time I listened to it. I would definitely recommend OKAY to people who enjoyed Transit’s old albums.
Another stand-out track on OKAY is “Grunge For Life.” This song is the perfect length sitting at a minute and 44 seconds, getting right to the point and doing what it needs to in a short amount of time. The unclean vocals during the bridge that leads into the heavy amount of guitar feedback/noise is fantastic.
Overall, Dowsing has done a fantastic job with their long waited release of their third album. OKAY shouldn’t have gone any other way than it did. The new mature sounding Dowsing is going to be able to accomplish anything in 2016 with this release, and I’m excited to see what they will do with it. This is definitely my favorite release of 2016 so far.
Rating: 5/5
Listen to “Getting Better”
STAY CONNECTED WITH DOWSING: https://www.facebook.com/Dowsingband