Over the course of a restless and jumpy discography,
Dot Dash has always subverted impulses to rock out with an ear for jangly pop hooks. With founding bandmembers coming from backgrounds firmly rooted in Washington, D.C.'s searching hardcore scene, it seemed impossible for their newer output to ever fully escape the influence of those salad days. With sixth album
Proto Retro, those ties might finally have been cut. Even on 2016's
Searchlights, the album directly preceding
Proto Retro, the band embraced loud guitar rock -- not so much with punk angst as with overblown rock blasts. Streamlined from a quartet to a power trio,
Dot Dash turn inward from the first notes of
Proto Retro, opting for chorus-drenched guitar, wistful melodies, and sad, dreamy harmonies instead of the sharp and nervous pop of their early albums or the loud lumbering of
Searchlights. The soft but moody atmosphere is most prominent on songs like "Parachute Powerline" and the bouncy opening track "Unfair Weather." Never quite stark or depressing, the album is held together by an autumnal melancholy. Songs like "World's Last Payphone" carry the same reflective and subtle tones of late-'80s and early-'90s college radio heroes.
Proto Retro is a less explosive effort than
Dot Dash's earlier releases, but it's none the dimmer for its introspection. The band turn in some of their most immediately impacting songs, uncovering deeper springs of thought and feeling by taking things down just a notch. ~ Fred Thomas