What do atheism, nature, salamanders, the year 536 AD, lo-fi electronics, and garage rock have in common? Perhaps not much on paper, but they all swirl together in lysergic glee on Dennis Davison’s third solo album Sirens And Hellbenders — premiering exclusively on Tinnitist.
“Sirens and hellbenders are words that imply chaos, but they’re also two types of salamanders,” reveals Davison. “I’ve always loved nature — it’s a beautiful jumble.” Speaking of beautiful jumbles, Sirens And Hellbenders fittingly finds the Los Angeles singer-songwriter expanding his sonic template, crafting intriguing lo-fi soundscapes around his infectiously catchy songs.
A collection of well-crafted, paisley pop-rock, the trippy and tuneful Sirens And Hellbenders opens with the playful but poignant single Putting Up With People. Here, chunky guitar riffs and rubbery bass lines evoke classic British pop-rock bands like The Move and The Kinks. The lyric, meanwhile, presents a difficult task at hand:
“I’m really skilled at putting up with people
But I’m not thrilled at the prospect of it all
I do recall the slights and confrontations
The hostile nations looking for a brawl.”
Invisiblia oozes prime psych-rock mystique with its moody melodies, phased-out guitar, processed drums and gurgling ambience. The song speaks to that strange phenomenon known as the “phantom girlfriend.” “Whenever someone talks about a girlfriend my friends and I have never met, we dub the illusive companion Invisibilia,” Davison shares laughing. The song’s barbed wit is established on the opening lines:
“Such a clear complexion
Translucent girl, you’re close to perfection
You are more than fine
Invisible lines distort your reflection.”
Why Do We Need A God is gorgeous, mind-altering atheism. The song features an abstract and exotic soundscape, including the Japanese toy / synthesizer Otamatone, and poetic but persuasive lyric lines. One standout couplet supplies the album with its title: ‘We live in a world filled with sirens and hellbenders — why do we need a god, sweet Jesus?’ “It’s a song about the magnificence of nature,” Dennis shares.
Davison conjures medieval psychedelia on the organ-lavished album closer, 536 AD. He wrote the song thinking about 2020 as the worst year in modern history, thanks to the pandemic and all the political unrest. However, upon further research, Dennis found that historians considered 536 AD the worst year on Earth due to cataclysmic volcanoes that blocked out the sun and wiped out almost half of the world’s population. The song’s lyric, however, is a cautionary tale for our modern dystopia:
“Blistering heat from a slow-burning lame brain
Climate is altered, we’re circling the storm drain
Legacy welfare, born into a fortune
King of inheritance, prince of distortion
Oh no, where did the sun go.”
Davison may not have been born into wealth, but he has amassed a rich musical legacy: He is a solo artist, multi-instrumentalist and the lead singer and songwriter in the Grammy-nominated band The Jigsaw Seen. They have been immortalized by being included on the seminal Children of Nuggets box set, but Davison’s place in neo-psychedelia was already assured as a member of the early 1980s band United States Of Existence.
He began his solo career in 2020 and since then has released his debut album, a five-song EP, and an album of voice-memo demos. His songs and voice can be heard in many films and television shows, including the Emmy-winning animated sci-fi series Futurama and the black comedy-drama Shameless.
Listen to Sirens And Hellbenders below, and find out what you have in common with Dennis Davison on his website, Instagram and Facebook.
