EP REVIEW: Dim Times – Thetan

Nashville hardcore outfit THETAN are busy putting the finishing touches to their next LP, but amidst the recording, mixing and mastering of that project, the duo somehow still found themselves with time to kill. So they decided to record yet more music; Dim Times compiles six new and unreleased tracks, covers and and re-recorded deep cuts.

Starting with the new and unreleased, we have the title track which was written for a previous release but never made the cut, and Departure which is an outlier interlude that features banjo, of all things. While the latter has become something of a tradition on THETAN releases, the former is the duo at their most traditionally bold. 

In the re-recorded corner, we are given new versions of Penance and Collateral Damage, each taken from their debut album Laughed At By The Gods as they “felt they could have been recorded better” according to vocalist and bassist Dan Emery. While ‘clean’ certainly comes nowhere near THETAN’s wheelhouse, what we can say is that these versions are a lot less noisy. They still have the volume of the originals, but the fuzz and the start-up quality is waylaid to give you nothing but the grit and the grime of their sound.

Lastly, the covers take the form of DWARVES’ Fuck You Up And Get High, which has been part of THETAN’s live repertoire for years, and WIPERS’ D7, which Emery states is one of his son’s favourite songs, so they recorded this as a surprise for him. Both are given the THETAN treatment to the fullest effect, exacerbating the hardcore punk into something ferocious that borders on grindcore.

Did THETAN need to release Dim Times? The answer is probably no, but it is refreshing to see a band that clearly loves what they do. And in terms of what the full physical release includes – that is over 40 tracks compiling split and compilation songs and well-recorded demos – it makes sense to put this out into the world now before their next LP. But in truth, this will be little more than a placeholder for many.

Rating: 7/10

Dim Times is set for release on May 19th via Anti-Corporate Music.

Follow THETAN on Bandcamp.