Dinosaurs Are Not Gone! – “RAWRRRR!!!” [Album Review]

I started listening to Dinosaurs Are Not Gone! without knowing what I was getting myself into. I was somewhat caught off guard whilst drinking my morning coffee, my jolt causing waves of coffee to splash all over my beautiful face – not quite as epic as the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, but comparable in frustration. To me, who loves his music over produced on records, RAWRRRR!!! comes across like pre-production from The Dillinger Escape Plan, not trying to oversell the band. Dillinger is still Dillinger.

The song structure of the tracks on RAWRRRR!!! are what you picture when thinking of “progressive” music. Rhythms change often as do instrumentation, with intermittent bongo drums when the percussionist must have been “feeling it.” If you’re a sucker for creativity, this is an endless pre-historic cave of colorful dinosaurs and wall paintings in odd time signatures.

Even though album features predominately rock instrumentation, there are moments of some cool electronica-influenced interludes (maybe only one, now that I think of it). It’s a nice break from the madness, which I should probably note, the music overall all is fairly chaotic with random vocal stutters, vocals that are mostly screams.

G-d damn it. The production is really starting to get on my nerves. The kick is clipping the whole scheissing mix, and I understand that’s part of the novelty, and the band would probably not appreciate me saying that, so I will chalk this aspect of it up to personal preference. There are some super-heavy riffs on this bad boy, but the noisiness of some of it, in my opinion, detracts a bit from being able to fully understand what’s going on, especially if you’re wearing headphones, which I am currently using while writing this, and I must say, listening to the music and typing at the same time is surprisingly difficult. I have so many red squiggly marks in this Word document that I am going to have to go back and correct.

Best moment: at around 2:33 of “Kronosaurus” there’s about half a measure of a swing/jazz drum rhythm before a breakdown. That half measure defines this album for me. “4’33,” though, is easily the most suspenseful.

Track Listing:

01. Trias
02. Compsognathus, or, Endeavors
03. Kronosaurus, or, Twisted Tongues
04. Spinosaurus, or, Being Lured Like Moths To A Street Light Except They Seek Freedom and It Burns Their Wings
05. Velociraptors, or, Grow A Spine And Cleanse Your Skin Of The Dirt
06. Triceratops, or, NOW
07. Tyrannosaurus, or, Faith Will Drive You Home
08. K/T
09. Rawrrrr!!!
10. Trias (Vanilla)
11. Compsognathus (Instrumental)
12. Kronosaurus (Instrumental)
13. Spinosaurus (Instrumenal)
14. Velociraptors (Instrumental)
15. Triceratops (Instrumental)
16. Tyrannosaurus (Instrumental)
17. K/T (Instrumental)
18. Rawrrrr!!! (Instrumental)
19. 4’33” (Arranged For Acoustic Guitar And Baritone)

Run Time: 1:12:03
Release Date: June 24, 2014

Check out the song “Tyrannosaurus, or, Faith Will Drive You Home”