Gun Outfit
Dream All Over
PARADISE OF BACHELORS
7/10
Lead by Carrie Keith and Dylan Sharp, Gun Outfit’s roots are in punk and hardcore, but just like SST bands of lore—Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü—their punk ethic is more about pure musical freedom and less about restrictive numbers of chords. Dream All Over is full of droning ragas, sunburned country twang, paisley underground vibes, electric folk rock, and West Coast mysticism—its punkness is ideological. “Gotta have room to move my body so I don’t go insane,” Keith sings on the motor-driven “Gotta Wanna.” The rambling and loose rhythm section of Daniel Swire and Adam Payne keeps things grooving, while Henry Barnes (of hardcore band Man Is the Bastard) contributes swirling sitars throughout. “We came to an agreement with the sky,” Sharp sings on “In Orbit,” and it’s a perfect summation of the band’s exquisite, shambolic songs. They’re as capable of drifting up into space as descending into the canyons, cosmic like a midnight drive.
