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The Dirty Nil

Juno Award-winning Canadian trio the Dirty Nil play a staggeringly loud, blown-out mélange of hard rock and punk with hoarse, raw vocals. Self-described as a "rock & roll band" and not a punk outfit, they toured for years before releasing an album, winning themselves a spot on the Warped Tour without ever compromising their ideals. Seasoned by years of road work, the Dirty Nil's debut album, 2016's Higher Power, was a rough but muscular approximation of their live attack, while their second album, 2018's Master Volume, was more refined but no less swaggering. Two years later the band issued the punchy Fuck Art, which included the wry and explosive single "Done with Drugs," and 2023's Free Rein to Passions was a stripped-down, elemental set that took them back to their creative roots. Raised on proto-punk and classic rock, childhood friends Luke Bentham (guitar, vocals) and Kyle Fisher (drums) grew up in sleepy Dundas, Ontario, a satellite town of Hamilton on the shores of Lake Ontario, near the border with the United States. They played music together for years, primarily for fun and practice, but the band did not really take off until bassist Dave Nardi joined in 2009 and they started to play shows in nearby Hamilton, a small city with a close-knit and thriving rock scene of which they swiftly became an integral part. The band paid their dues with grueling tours across the U.S. and Canada, gradually honing their sound. With a strong D.I.Y. ethic, and in no rush to release an album, they churned out a steady stream of 7" singles, one of which made its way into the hands of NOFX frontman Fat Mike. Impressed by the young band's sound, he contacted them with the offer of a label deal on his Fat Wreck Chords label; the resulting 7", "Cinnamon," caused considerable consternation among fans of the label's usually static skate-punk style. The Dirty Nil eventually signed to Dine Alone for the 2016 release of their debut album Higher Power, which recalled various '90s icons of grunge, indie, and noise rock. Minimum R&B, a collection of pre-Higher Power single and EP tracks, arrived in 2017, the same year the band received a Juno Award (the Canadian Grammy) as "Breakthrough Group of the Year." 2017 also saw the departure of Dave Nardi from the lineup, with Ross Miller of Single Mothers taking over on bass. The hard-working trio was back in 2018 with Master Volume, which found the Dirty Nil sounding more precise but no less committed to their rock & roll vision. The band continued to hone their verbose, garage-punk sound on 2021's hard-hitting Fuck Art. That same year, Ross Miller dropped out of the band, and Sam Tomlinson, a fellow Dundas native who worked with the band Captain Wildchild, was recruited to be their new bassist. In November 2022, the Dirty Nil gave fans a new song on the single "Bye Bye Big Bear," and six months later, they delivered their fourth full-length album, Free Rein to Passions. Taking their sound back to the hard-hitting elemental attack of their earliest sides, the LP saw the band lending their wit and wisdom to songs about the downsides of having a boss ("Stupid Jobs"), the upside of being a better person ("Nicer Guy"), and the use of fireworks ("Blowing Up Things in the Woods").
© John D. Buchanan & Mark Deming /TiVo
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Discography

12 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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