Dommengang, guitarist Dan “Sig” Wilson, bassist Brian Markham, and drummer Adam Bulgasem, recorded their sophomore album Love Jail shortly after relocating to Los Angeles. It was not just a coast shift for two of the members, but the first time the band were together in one city. The sophomore album reflects the openness of their new surroundings as well as the energy and experience of being reunited and playing together in the same place. Dommengang have adapted to the arid climates, and imbued their particular brand of rock with a heavy dose of the best of 1970’s rock aesthetics, including at least one ballad. The album was produced by The Fucking Champs guitarist and engineer Tim Green (Joanna Newsom, Howlin’ Rain, Sleepy Sun, Fresh and Onlys) who perfectly captured the band’s sound while creating the space of older analog recordings. Love Jail includes Dommengang’s most melodic and lyric-heavy songs to date - a great road trip record, and a dynamic listen that is of the moment, organic and earthy with a heavy nod to the clear, lean recordings of a time long before any of its members were born.
Over the course of ten songs, Dommengang draw widely from the American rock music lexicon, primarily influenced by electric blues. The band draws from the guitar-driven sounds of the blues as much its energy and sense of freedom. The clash of Sig Wilson’s psychedelic roots and the punk-tinged backgrounds of Markham and Bulgasem, gives Love Jail its grit. From the earth-scorching passages of “Pastel City” to the spaced-out flourishes of “Dave’s Boogie,” to the dirty funk of “I’m Out Mine,” the album is a desert driver’s dream. The guitar and vocal interplay of “Color Out of Space,” or the anthemic choruses of “Going Down Fast” are rock the way it used to be: no heavy effects, just bass, drums, and guitar, great songs of love and lust, all with a healthy dose of guitar solos. In short Love Jail is Dommengang at their catchiest. Shimmering with the clarity of Tim Green’s engineering, the album’s live, in-the-room energy perfectly translates Dommengang’s core ethos: rock and roll will never die.
