Canadian duo Dune Reaper met on a construction site and are building a grungey outlet for the burned-out and the overworked. They’ve crafted a gritty and atmospheric rock-meets-metal sound that they describe as “aggressive, dynamic and chaotic.”
The duo of Nate and Hunter, who hail from Burlington, Ontario, met while working in construction. They quickly exchanged Spotify profiles, knew straight away that their music “would shake some walls,” and begin building their own style.
On the Dune Reaper sound, Hunter told us: “Passionate, volatile noise with a hint of groove. Dune Reaper is two dudes who love music as an art form, making our own. We met in the trenches and needed an outlet to cleanse the muck of the grind.”
And Nate added: “You either like it or you don’t. It’s rather simple songwriting on our part, but we let the raw, vulnerable, overwhelming, and heavy tones do most of the talking.”
Our first taste of this is Dune Reaper’s debut single forever asleep, which was released at the end of August and was recorded by Justin Koop (Finger Eleven, Billy Talent, Silverstein’s debut album). The track opens up with echoey lumbering guitars over engaging high-pitched vocals “It’s been a long night, Gonna be an early morning and a long day too, I’ve been working ’til my fingers bleed, I can’t pay the bills, I’m fucked and I can’t be saved.” A thick guitar jumps in as the vocals continue, but a cry of “I took that fucking drug” sees the track explode into life with vicious screamed vocals, heavy fuzzy guitars and driving drums. The pace slows again as it drops into another verse before building up to another intense chorus. A cool darting riff takes over alongside the engaging vocals, teeing up one final blast of the raucous chorus.
On the track, Nate told us: “People will hear the debut track of two kids trying to make it by playing music. Blood, sweat, and tears went into this track, which everyone will hopefully hear.”
And Hunter added: “It’s always exciting to start a new journey, especially after all our effort into this song. You should expect something raw from the soul and real.”
The Dune Reaper sound has been shaped by a few key figures from the 1990s/2000s American grunge scene. When it comes to guitars, Nate tells us he’s inspired the simplicity of Kurt Cobain’s playing and the songwriting of Josh Homme. While Hunter hears unintentional Dave Grohl influence in his drumming and describes his vocals as “a horny Chino Moreno.”
And on what inspires them to write music, Nate says: “Nate: Our struggles with mental health and burnout inspire a lot of our songwriting ideas.” And Hunter simply adds: “The constant state of disillusionment.”
Dune Reaper will be busy writing and recording new music, but their main goal is performing. They have plans to book in gigs and potentially a small tour as they attempt to establish themselves as a new band in a competitive city for rock music.
And Nate added: “We’re trying to bring our motto of ‘make music loud again’ to everyone and
everywhere. We’re shying away from mainstream-sounding rock and songwriting standards to give people a truly unpolished, loud, and aggressive sound.” And Hunter promises: “It’s about to get fuckin’ wild.”
You can follow Dune Reaper on Instagram, and check out their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music and YouTube.
Listen to Dune Reaper and more new music on our Spotify playlists GigRadar Rock and GigRadar Grunge
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