Album Review: Dictator Ship – Your Favorites (The Sign Records)

Sweden’s Dictator Ship is excited to release their upcoming debut album Your Favorites, which will be released by The Sign Records on April 17th 2020. Dictator Ship is the prime and natural energy source that the world has been searching for.

Your Favorites was recorded in a small cabin in Värmland, Sweden, engineered by band member John Sijbren Leonard. He comments:

I am pleased with the lo-fi sound and the honesty of this album. It sounds like us, and that’s the hardest thing in recording, to capture your own sound.

The band mic’ed and pre-mixed all the drums through an old PA-mixing console from the ’70s. Then they summed the drums up to two stereo channels, so only two drum channels were recorded. This was done to save on channels, mostly because they only had eight channels available for the whole recording. The instruments were recorded live with vocals added later on.

The reason for this unique approach was that John wanted to focus on the band’s live sound rather than studio enhancements.  What listeners hear on Your Favorites is what they’d hear from Dictator Ship at a small Swedish pub — or perhaps one day, a big-city stadium.

Absolutely nailing the lo-fi sound they were going for, this debut from the hard rocking Dictator Ship perfectly captures the ‘live’ vibe. This sounds as though it was captured at some dive bar that saw Dictator Ship cause a little bit of chaos.

From the opening riffing wildness of In the Heat of the Night to the hyper energy of Savage with its slower drops into melody. The opening duo will excite in the only way raw and classy rock music can.

Good Things Gone Bad has the band lean right into their foot-tapping, body shaking style before Just For Fun continues to show just how much a riff machine this band is.

Short and to the point, exactly like a sweaty and fast paced live show would be, Dictator Ship wrap up Your Favorites with a hefty trio. Eat the Poor, Gunner Man and From the Womb to the Tomb setting the mind ablaze with thoughts of just where an album this strong will send this band.

Dictator Ship – Your Favorites Full Track Listing:

1. In the Heat of the Night
2. Savage
3. Good Thing Gone Bad
4. Just For Fun
5. Eat the Poor
6. Gunner Man
7. From the Womb to the Tomb

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