DZTN 1980 – Outside The City LP

DZTN 1980 is a brand new solo project of Dustin Herron, a very prolific punk rocker formerly known as a lead singer/guitar player for Abolitionist, a Corvallis, OR politically charged punk rock band. After the Abolitionist disbandment in December of 2019, Dustin made an announcement about his continuation, but mainly as a solo artist, so Outside The City is his debut album comprised of thirteen compositions. Dustin’s sense for rhyme and the themes he’s covering in his songs are familiar to me already, his abilities to write proper songs are undoubtfully proven through his work with Abolitionist, but this time he took a different approach. His new project primarily focuses on guitar works and vocals, but these songs are not lacking the rhythm section at all. Both guitar channels have been enhanced with a subtle portion of the chorus effect that reminiscent the sound of Greg Sage (The Wipers), but lyric-wise, DZTN 1980 floats somewhere deep in the political punk rock waters. Still, the chorus effect gives a pleasant melancholic feel to the entire material, compositions are highly vigorous despite lacking the rhythm section and Dustin has wondrously done his part of the job. Dustin intentionally or unintentionally comes close to the sound of The Wipers, The Clash, UK Subs, and Ramones, but he also left some space for his signature moves. One thing is for sure, DZTN 1980 contains a hatful of raging manifestos accompanied by the powerfully memorable chord progressions and progressive guitar fills that undoubtfully highlight the main portion of the album. Outside The City has been recorded, mixed and mastered at Haywire Recording Studio by Rob Bartleson, who did an amazing job on this one. Outside The City also contains an astonishing artwork, entirely made by Justin Santora, who’s famous for his work for Propagandhi, Ween, Childish Gambino, John Prine, Phish, Dry The River, Element Skateboards…etc. The album is available for free streaming and download at DZTN 1980’s Bandcamp page, so please go ahead and check this one out.