THE DIRTY NIL release new album ‘The Lash’

THE DIRTY NIL release new

album ‘The Lash’

Watch the live performance of solo punk ballad ‘This is Me Warning Ya’

Currently on tour with Heart Attack Man

Hamilton, Ontario’s The Dirty Nil have today release their fifth album, The Lash, via Dine Alone Records. Ultimately, The Lash sounds exactly like what the title implies – a cold, hard crack of the whip by the Canadian rock band, one that snaps them with a much needed reset after nearly 20 years of exploring the light.

Following the hardcore-laced heat of ‘Fail in Time’ and the snarling honesty of ‘Rock N’ Roll Band,’ the record’s focus track, ‘This Is Me Warning Ya,’ showcases a strikingly different side of the band – cinematic, spacious, and surprisingly romantic. ‘This is Me Warning Ya’ trades distortion for orchestration, bringing in violin and cello to build a darkly elegant backdrop for Luke Bentham’s crooning vocals.

Speaking of the track vocalist Luke Bentham shares, “I was definitely on a Frank Sinatra listening kick. I wrote it really quickly and was happy with it. There were no revisions or alterations from the first draft. When we recorded it, our friend Sara Danae came in to play violin on what I had laid down, it really made it sound lush. We asked if she could also play some cello as well. Despite never playing one before, she bowed out a simple but beautiful passage and I was over the moon with the final result.”

THE DIRTY NIL – ‘This Is Me Warning Ya’ (Live Performance)

All over their new record, The Dirty Nil dive headfirst into something far more visceral and back-to-basics. Without a moment to overthink, The Lash poured out of them, and they recorded the entire record in just over two weeks with up-and-coming producer and their actual front-of-house engineer, Vince Solveri. The result finds the band sounding more urgent and alive than ever before.

Everything about The Lash evokes a certain sort of brutality. During a trip to the Vatican, vocalist / guitarist Luke Bentham found inspiration in some of its forgotten art. “I was in a very dusty part of the basement, and they had these crazy bronze reliefs that were some of the most brutal things I’ve ever seen,” he recalls. “There was a particular one called The Horrors of War. It was two guys fighting over a knife. That image ended up guiding a lot of this record.”

From there, the band brought in UK designer Jack Sabbat for his acerbic, bootleg punk-flyer style, assuring The Lash would look right at home in a beat-up bin of old Crass records or in a Medieval torture dungeon.

Thematically, the album’s ten tracks trade Bentham’s usual happy-go-lucky romanticism for a cathartic vent session about everything from music industry bullsh*t to the dissolution of a relationship. Drummer and co-conspirator Kyle Fisher jokes: “I’ve been telling people that this is Luke’s therapy record.”

THE LASH – Tracklisting

1) Gallop of the Hounds

2) Fail in Time

3) That Don’t Mean It Won’t Sting

4) Rock ‘n’ Roll Band

5) This Is Me Warning Ya

6) Do You Want Me?

7) Spider Dream

8) They Won’t Beat Us

9) Hero Narrative

10) I Was A Henchman

Order / Stream:

https://thedirtynilstream.com/thelash

Formed in 2006, The Dirty Nil have always leaned more towards the flashier side of punk, but The Lash finds them stripping everything back to what matters most: no frills, just playing like their lives depend on it.

For fans of bands like The Jesus Lizard, The Bronx, and Metz, The Lash is a high-stakes rock record from a group that’s spent over a decade delivering unrelenting live performances, building a global fanbase, and even winning a Juno Award for Breakthrough Band in 2017. They’ve played the game and done the dance for long enough; this is The Dirty Nil back on their own terms.

FORTHCOMING LIVE DATES

JULY (w/ Heart Attack Man)
25: SEATTLE The Crocodile
26: VANCOUVER Rickshaw Theater
27: PORTLAND Hawthorne Theatre
29: SACRAMENTO Goldfield Trading Post
30: BERKELEY Cornerstone Berkeley
31: FRESNO Strummer’s

AUGUST (w/ Heart Attack Man)
01: LOS ANGELES Lodge Room Highland Park
02: MESA The Nile Theater
04: EL PASO Lowbrow Palace
05: DALLAS RBC
06: SAN ANTONIO Paper Tiger
08: AUSTIN Come and Take It Live
09: OKLAHOMA CITY Beer City Music Hall

SEPTEMBER

11: BARRIE Rec Room (w/ Heart Attack Man)
12: LONDON London Music Hall (w/ Heart Attack Man)
13: ST. CATHARINES Warehouse (w/ Heart Attack Man)
14: ST. CATHARINES Warehouse (w/ Heart Attack Man)
16: OSHAWA Biltmore Theatre (w/ Heart Attack Man)
18: PETERBOROUGH The Venue (w/ Heart Attack Man)
19: KINGSTON Broom Factory (w/ Heart Attack Man)
20: OTTAWA Bronson Centre (w/ Heart Attack Man)
21: MONTREAL Café Campus (w/ Heart Attack Man)
23: VANDORF Harmony Hall
25: BURNSTOWN Neat Café
26: GALT Farm League Brewing
27: WINDSOR Meteor
28: WINDSOR Meteor

OCTOBER (with Spanish Love Songs + on the Common Thread tour)
09: VIENNA Szene
10: STUTTGART Club Cann
11: SCHWEINFURT Statbahnhoff
12: MILAN Legend 54
14: ZURICH Dynamo
15: WIESBADEN Schlachthof
16: HAMBURG Knust
18: OBERHAUSEN Common Thread Tour
19: BRUSSELS Common Thread Tour
20: HAARLEM Common Thread Tour
22: BIRMINGHAM O2 Institute
23: MANCHESTER New Century Hall
24: NOTTINGHAM Rescue Rooms
25: LONDON Common Thread Tour
26: LEEDS Common Thread Tour