Dom & The Wizards

Following several years of solid mayhem with Wireheads, Australian songwriter Dom Trimboli has moved his madness under the awning of Dom & The Wizards. The band let out a few sneak-up singles and one vinyl-only home country release (The Ongoing Adventures of) and now they follow with a sophomore LP for Tenth Court. The band shares more than a little DNA with Wireheads — channeling Dom’s brittle pop sensibilities through the firelight stumble of pop that saws at the mind with an off-kilter insistence. What’s most fun about Dom’s work is the sense that it might unravel a bit at the edges at any moment — pianos pound to the point that the keys must break under the pressure, fiddles howls with a ragged glee, and the guitars jut in and out of view at angles that feel far beyond the breaking point. Yet, there’s also an underlying sense of pop that reigns it back in right before the seams sag.

There are even a few softer moments on The Australian Cyclone Intensity Scale, but for the most part The Wizards continue to kick up a country-punk dust that knocks the debris of post-punk out of its way. Trimboli whips copies of classics by Violent Femmes, Meat Puppets, and Mekons at the listeners’ heads, but doesn’t clip anything out of their innards wholesale. Instead there are shadows and shades of a distorted indie past, photocopied again and again until it begins to blur into Rorschach shapes of pop that poke the subconscious. The record, like all of Dom’s works is both subversive and wholly unconcerned with any critical reception. That magic intersection will always pull me back to Dom’s works. Those who know, know and will appreciate the spell that Dom & The Wizards cast.

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