Location: Portland, Oregon
Country: USA
Genre: Experimental
Full length: The Back of Beyond
Format: Jewel case CD, digital, cassette, black vinyl. sea blue vinyl
Label: Vesperian, Metal Blade
Release date: July 31, 2026
Listening to Dry Wedding’s “The Back of Beyond” is like watching a spaghetti western where all the characters are daywalking vampires. It could be set in an isolated corner of the Old West, away from human eyes, with architecture reminiscent of classic vampire cinema from Hammer Films. Bauhaus, Joy Division, Fields of the Nephilim and Glenn Danzig’s Samhain could be included on the soundtrack.
Here’s what inspired my analogy: this album not only sounds like that long-past era but evokes its feeling. While other societies around the world were becoming more civilized, danger loomed over the American frontier like a dark cloud, and the only law was survival of the fittest. Like watching a movie, you know it's fiction and feel safe observing everything from the outside. Still, there’s something about it that chills you to the bone.
Finding or creating a place where gothic rock and Americana country intersect, the band crafts a grounded, darkly mystical atmosphere that is as visually expressive as it is shadowed. Exploring connections with rockabilly, noise rock, post-punk, doom, and black metal propels their ongoing evolution, building upon their preceding albums “The Long Erode” and “Sway.” Since releasing those albums, Dry Wedding has convincingly argued that all their influences have roots in the 1950s and 60s, and earlier.
Reflecting the spirit of pirate radio stations in the UK, US, and Mexico, unlicensed stations with unsanctioned playlists. and free radio broadcasting outside government control, the band has always drawn from the same well as The Doors, The Velvet Underground, and old Pink Floyd, while crooning lyrics in the vein of Elvis, Jim Morrison, and (occasionally) Roy Orbison. Not so much indulging in sentimental reminiscence as demonstrating those artists’ timelessness and their consonance with modern music, Dry Wedding seems to step outside musical history, reaching for the dark spaces encountered when you look into that absence of light a little too long.
Having established that forbidden danger early on, they began to see where their songwriting was compatible with even rawer and darker genres with years of staying power, projecting greater strength and clarity through their vocals to balance intensity and restraint. Slowly and patiently, Dry Wedding eased their music into a dark pocket crafted from styles bands revisited time and again.
As they grew more comfortable with their ideas, their songs grew increasingly spaced, church-like and carnival-esque, making room for exploratory writing, introducing nuances of prog rock, surf rock and new wave besides noise and black metal into their mystique. The crooning was still crooning, but it grew deeper, more resonant, more pronounced. The band became so comfortable with it, so inspired by their ideas, they reached a point where they could push things as far as they wanted.
On “The Back of Beyond,” their frontier town aura and pirate radio frame of mind are a backdrop for shades of grey, maroon, navy blue, forest green, and of course, black. Their fusion of genres has coalesced into a cinematic experience appealing to all your senses. Today, there are fewer restrictions on which influences can fit together. Dry Wedding present new opportunities for growth, making concepts and vibes as integral to their sound as the music that speaks to them. The same can be said for Adam Burke’s cover artwork which sets the albums tone before you even listen to it. –Dave Wolff
Lineup:
Davey Ferchow: Vocals, guitar
Jarrod Green: Guitar, synthesizer
Chadwick Ferguson: Bass
Tom Fuller: Drums
Track list:
1. Arrowhead
2. The Serpent Box
3. Sure As A Gun
4. Blood-Red Vengeance
5. One Last Strand
6. Moths
7. Shifting Wilderness
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