Salt Lake City-based progressive blues rock trio, Dwellers, will release their “Corrupt Translation Machine” full-length on May 23rd, 2025, via Small Stone Recordings. The gripping, nine-track offering marks the band’s first new output in over a decade.
Dwellers’ story has always been one of diversion and redirection. Begun in Salt Lake City by guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano – also of Iota – the band’s 2012 debut, “Good Morning Harakiri”, and its 2014 follow-up, “Pagan Fruit”, helped establish a distinct creative voice in psychedelia and Americana-tinged blues rock, expressive and vulnerable in ways that heavy rock ‘n’ roll is rarely willing to be.
“Corrupt Translation Machine”, which brings bassist Oz Inglorious (Iota, ex-Bird Eater), drummer Kellii Scott (Failure), and pianist/synthesist Chase Cluff (Last) to a completely revamped four-piece lineup, is both a reinvention and continuation of Dwellers’ purpose. The album lays claim to the heaviest sounds Dwellers have yet produced and meets that head on with poppish fluidity and melodicism as the album sets out with “Headlines”, only to take greater risks later. Love and the potential of its loss meet with expansive, sometimes cinematic texturing, and just as Toscano led Iota into a career-defining reignition with 2024’s comeback LP, “Pentasomnia”, so too do Dwellers declare themselves with “Corrupt Translation” Machine.
“In the context of the album, the ‘Corrupt Translation Machine’ is the human being”, reveals Toscano. “The songs on this album seem to be mostly about impermanence, addiction, loss, love, and the intangibility of perception. I say ‘seem to’ because there was no contrived concept for the album to be one thing or another, and when I listen to it, I have a strong feeling that I’m interpreting it just the same as when I’m listening to someone else’s songs. I could tell you exactly what each song is about, but that would go against the title of the album”.
The evocative tapestry of Dwellers’ sound has evolved in craft, intention and performance. It’s not just about having new people on board or about not sounding like Iota. “Corrupt Translation Machine” posits Dwellers as a singular entity as it engages classic progressivism and breadth in the eleven-minute “Marigold (Heart of Stone)” or shifts into the outright tonal crush of “The Beast” or the weighted push of “The Maze”. No one song is just one thing, however, and as Dwellers bring together ideas from across a range of styles from space rock to dirt-coated grunge, the listening experience becomes less about genre and more about soul.
In this way, and despite the title, “Corrupt Translation Machine” could hardly communicate more clearly what and who Dwellers are as a band. And more, it speaks to the greater ongoing thread of their progression, renewed after eleven years and somehow still right on time.
In advance of the release of “Corrupt Translation Machine”, today Dwellers unveils “The Sermon”.
Comments Toscano: “‘The Sermon’ continues building on Dwellers’ original foundation of dark, gothic Western Americana with heavy influences of Seattle rock and West Coast heavy blues. The song begins like a Spaghetti Western horror movie and things only get weirder from there. We put this song to the cadence of a waltz to give it a dizzying effect. With lyrics being sung from the point of view of a crazed, yet unsettlingly wise preacher, it ends up being perfectly Utahn — a place where we can’t tell the difference between the circus and church. This is arguably the heaviest song on the album, but not by any means, its darkest. ‘Corrupt Translation Machine takes the vibes of ‘Good Morning Harakiri’ and ‘Pagan Fruit’ into even deeper explorations of our dynamic blend of melodic heavy rock and esoteric Western madness”.
Stream “The Sermon” here.
All songs on “Corrupt Translation Machine” were written, arranged, and produced by Joey Toscano. Drums were tracked at Akira Audio by Gabe Van Benschoten in Calabasas, California. Everything else was recorded by Mike Sasitch at Man Vs. Music in Salt Lake City, Utah, mixed by Eric Hoegemyer at Tree Laboratory in Brooklyn, New York, and mastered by Chris Goosman at Baseline Audio Labs in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Artwork was handled by Dani Joy and layout by Alexander von Wieding.
Fans of Mad Season, Neil Young, Iota, Failure, David Gilmore, Radiohead, Queens Of the Stone Age, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, King Buffalo, etc. pay heed.
“Corrupt Translation Machine” will be released on CD, digital, and limited-edition vinyl.
Find all preorders here.
Tracklist:
1. Headlines
2. Spiral Vision
3. Old Ways
4. The Beast
5. Inside Infinity
6. The Maze
7. The Sermon
8. Marigold (Heart Of Stone)
9. Made (Psych Ward Mix)
Line-up:
Joey Toscano – Guitars, vocals, synth, Rhodes piano
Oz Inglorious – Bass
Kellii Scott – Drums
Chase Cluff – Synthesizers, Rhodes piano
