by Seamus Fitzpatrick
Return to Dust’s latest EP, Speak Like the Dead (Republic/LAVA), is a concise and deeply considered statement. Across six tracks, the band leans into muscular rhythm section interplay, evolving vocal textures, and guitar work that balances warmth, grit, and melodic textures. Produced by Jim Kaufman, the record highlights a young band thinking as songwriters as much as performers to shape songs with attention to dynamics, timbre, and sonic architecture.
“Shine” opens with full-throttle momentum as London Hudson’s drumming and Graham Stanush’s bass lock tightly. Sebastian Gonzalez’s guitar sits in the sound stage with a warmly distorted presence. Matty Bielawski’s vocals, doubled and harmonized, provide melodic direction and rhythmic counterpoint. The most notable feature is the dialogue between Gonzalez’s guitar line and Bielawski’s lead vocal, a kind of counterpoint that takes the track beyond riff-driven rock into compositional territory.
“Bored” is where the band’s vocal production becomes an added coloring texture. Bielawski and Stanush shift between phrases, doubling, and harmonization, creating shifts in weight and texture across lines. The chorus lifts with force, propelled by Stanush’s excellent bass tone that remains clear and punchy. Gonzalez delivers a soaring, melodic guitar solo that underscores the band’s ability to craft songs with multiple contours.
“Disarray” ramps the tempo and energy, built on Hudson’s propulsive drumming and a more texturally adventurous vocal treatment from Bielawski. Call-and-response structures, supported by layered effects, give the song elasticity. Gonzalez’s slide guitar part is especially effective, matching Bielawski’s timbre and emotional color, showing the band’s sensitivity to sonic pairing.
On “Downfall,” the group shifts gears with an acoustic guitar framing the form and a sweeter vocal timbre. Other parts of the form have electric guitar figures for contrast. Bielawski contrasts upper- and lower-register vocals. The emotional core arrives in the cadential figure, where Hudson and Stanush tighten momentum and the song resolves with striking impact.
“Summer Rain” explores darker modal ground. Gonzalez and Bielawski drive with a harder-edged guitar tone, while Stanush’s bass anchors the low end. Bielawski’s vocal leaps span wide intervals to give an emotive shape with added delay and reverb for texture. This gives the track its dramatic edge. These production choices emphasize the tension between intimacy and expanse.
“Abyss” closes the EP with a structure that plays against expectation. Hudson’s rolling drum pattern and Bielawski’s long-held vocal notes introduce the chorus, which then collapses into a half-tempo, near-speak-sung verse. The space this creates allows for gradual intensification, culminating in a deconstructed ending that dissolves into electronic noise.
As a whole, Speak Like the Dead demonstrates Return to Dust’s maturation as songwriters and performers. The EP highlights their ability to think in terms of layers, with the album having vocal textures as compositional devices, guitars as harmonic foundation and countermelodic agents, and a rhythm section as the narrative driver. For rock music fans, the record offers raw energy that has a structured impact. That’s the short of it!
