Listen to old movie soundtracks and you'll hear a lot of lounge or downtempo sneaking around on them. Flip the needle around and you'll hear some pretty psychedelic and rocking songs. Rob Garza, one half of Thievery Corporation, is known for his impeccable taste and TC has compiled many a compilation of lost or forgotten lounge songs. It seems after all the searching and listening, Rob found something in those psych rock songs, and that brings us to his new project, Dust Galaxy.

1. Sun in Your Head
2. Limitless
3. Mother of Illusion
4. It's All Yours
5. River of Ever Changing Forms
6. Sons of Washington
7. Overhead
8. Down
9. Come Hear the Trumpets
10. Crying to the Night

Building on his other band's world-encompassing sound, Dust Galaxy moves beyond just another rock release into future-retro styling. Shades of 60's rock mesh with punk guitars. Dub bass echoes and Madchester beats jump. Rob leads the affairs with grainy voice and half-whispered vocals.

"Sons of Washington" is a political dub-rock song with biting lyrics against the haves and the high-minded leaders in D.C. Sitars pluck and drone on "River Of Ever Changing Forms" and the groove just keeps coming and coming. (Go to the Mother Of Illusion review to get more details on that song and River). "Limitless" and "Overhead" keep the garage rock vibe alive with riffing guitars and banging drums. "Cherubim Song" kicks the overdrive on and unabashedly rocks. "Down" and "Quiet In The Night" are slow acoustic driven numbers that slow down the tempo but up the musicianship as some of the best songs on the album.

Dust Galaxy step out of the shadow and down the street from anything previously released on ESL and shows that rock can be interesting, it can groove, it can dub, it can be mellow and most of all it can be creative in production and in song craft. Dust Galaxy needs simply to be categorized as "music."

~ Dedric Moore

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