ALBUM REVIEW: Dune Rats – Real Rare Whale

BMG

Released: 29.07.22

“Alright, time for some fun”, proclaims the cartoonish sample that precedes Dune Rats’ fourth album, Real Rare Whale. Indeed, fun is a commodity that the Queensland trio have never scrimped on in the past, but even by their own sky-scraping standards, this particular celebration of the good times feels especially bloody good.

Right out of the gate, Real Rare Whale melds a raucous, untamed punk vivacity with a consummate knack for cooking up hooks that stick like treacle-coated Velcro. Highlights such as Pamela Aniston and Dumb TV, for instance, might as well have been developed in a secret governmental laboratory tasked with producing a new hyper-virulent strain of irresistible festival barnburners. Not every swing makes for the purest of contacts, mind you, and sometimes the unyielding sugariness can threaten to overindulge even the sweetest tooth, but by and large, Dune Rats more than deliver on their promise of big, dumb fun.