{"id":28778,"date":"2025-01-13T05:30:25","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T10:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28778"},"modified":"2025-01-14T08:11:26","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T13:11:26","slug":"album-review-def-fo-music-for-dinosaurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/13\/album-review-def-fo-music-for-dinosaurs\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: def.fo \u2013 Music for Dinosaurs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-28779\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/deffo_dinosaurs.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"349\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/deffo_dinosaurs.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/deffo_dinosaurs-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/deffo_dinosaurs-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>When we last checked in with def.fo \u2013 the <i>nom de rock<\/i> of England\u2019s Tom Powell \u2013 the music being made on <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/21\/album-review-def-fo-eternity\/\"><i>Eternity<\/i><\/a> was a kind of modern-day psychedelia. And while that character remains on <i>Music for Dinosaurs<\/i>, there\u2019s a subtly more modern feel to the music. The almost under-the-breath chanting vocal of \u201cLet it Go\u201d owes as much to hip hop as to any psych heroes of yesteryear. The throbbing bass lines hearken to EDM. \u201cMind Can You Hear Me\u201d continues that vocal approach, wedding it to a crackling and hypnotic trip-hop beat. Listeners will hear echoes of Massive Attack.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOut of This World\u201d continues the understated quality, with a sludgy (in a good way) bass line and some keening guitar figures that draw connections between \u201860s and modern sonic aesthetics. \u201cMayday\u201d is haunting and hazy, with shades of Stone Roses meet Radiohead.<\/p>\n<p>Those stuttering beats, found (or \u201cfound\u201d) vocals and throbbing bassl ines are a foundational feature of <i>Music for Dinosaurs<\/i>. Listeners who didn\u2019t know better might be hard pressed to pinpoint exactly when this album came out: 1998? 2024? Anybody\u2019s guess, really, and that\u2019s a testament to its power. Even when def.fo introduces other styles \u2013 like the more traditionally jangle-pysch feel of the fetching \u201cWhen the Sun is Gone\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s done with conviction and authenticity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExile to Eden\u201d is all ambient natural sounds and poetry recitation; didn\u2019t see <i>that<\/i> coming. \u201cThis New World\u201d eschews the electronica textures in favor of an understated and simmering rock tune. The shimmering and hypnotic \u201cWe Are the Aliens\u201d has an appropriately space-rock feel. The record\u2019s most conventionally catchy tune, \u201cI\u2019m Coming Up\u201d draws the listener in to def.fo\u2019s world (assuming they weren\u2019t already there).<\/p>\n<p>The album\u2019s lengthiest track is also its last, and it\u2019s a sonic outlier. \u201cPebbles to Boulders\u201d features ersatz Mariachi horns (think Love\u2019s <i>Forever Changes<\/i>), searing electric lead guitar and a hazy feel. It\u2019s like nothing else on <i>Music for Dinosaurs<\/i>, and serves to underscore the eclectic mindset that lies at the foundation of def.fo\u2019s artistry. With an extended instrumental outro, it also ends the album in the strongest manner possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When we last checked in with def.fo \u2013 the nom de rock of England\u2019s Tom Powell \u2013 the music being made on Eternity was a kind of modern-day psychedelia. And [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,49,57,65,72],"tags":[5361],"class_list":["post-28778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-electronica","category-new-release","category-psych","category-review","category-trip-hop","tag-def-fo","cat-26-id","cat-49-id","cat-57-id","cat-65-id","cat-72-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28780,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28778\/revisions\/28780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}