dios

StarTime International

Right out of the gate, dios makes their musical philosophy clear: There isn’t a lot of music worth listening to these days, and the best music was made in the late ’60s and early ’70s, so quit wasting your time looking for the next big thing and just groove.

Some might argue that the next big thing is ’60s/’70s-sounding bands, but this Hawthorne, California-based quintet mostly avoids being derivative. When they are, it’s in an alternate-universe kind of way and nobody minds.

Preferring to concentrate on the psychedelic era, dios channels the Beatles, Pink Floyd, hometown favorite sons the Beach Boys and — slight detour here — Neil Young. The lone cover song on the CD is Young’s “Birds,” from “After the Gold Rush,” and they give it a more country sound with some tastefully employed steel guitar.

In a nutshell, “dios” is a well-executed balance of acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, melancholic songwriting and plaintive harmonizing, making it one of the best debut records in a long time.

Tracks
1. Nobody’s Perfect
2. Starting Five
3. The Uncertainty Of How Things Are
4. Fifty Cents
5. All Said + Done
6. You’ll Get Yours
7. Birds
8. You Make Me Feel Uncomfortable
9. Just Another Girl
10. You Got Me All Wrong
11. Meeting People
12. All My Life

Total time: 49.7 minutes

External Links
artist’s website
amazon.com
iTunes Store