The history of popular music is littered with bands who fulfilled everything needed to make it. Then fate kicked them in the teeth. Goofin’ good time Brit heavy rockers Dinosaur Pile-Up have had some rubbish luck.
In 2019, after slogging the circuit for a decade, their fourth album was signed to Parlophone, they supported The Offspring and Sum 41 on US tours, and their new song “Back Foot” was an ebullient pop-metal classic. They were on the brink of breaking big.
We all know what happened next. That virus closed the world. But, worse for the band, frontman Matt Bigland became seriously ill, like, death’s door ill, with an immune disorder that lasted years, a decline that wrecked his body to skin’n’bone, his insides and outsides covered in sores. Grim, miserable times.
He's finally back to good health, but Dinosaur Pile-Up’s fifth album comes six years after their fourth. Not ideal. Happily, Bigland’s songwriting mojo remains intact. He has said he felt conflicted about how to represent his dire illness. Dinosaur Pile-Up are, as their name suggests, not a po-faced proposition, more a pogo-ing festival frolic. With I’ve Felt Better, they maintain bravado, but seamed with Bigland’s experiences.
They were never a band to break musical ground. Their forte was, and is, songs you can leap about to and sing loud. Big room rock, tinted with metal, but as much with US pop-punk Their new album is riven with Nevermind tunefulness and loud-quiet dynamics.
There’s plenty of what they do well, from “Creep”-ish, slow-rolling outsider anthem “I Don’t Love Nothing and Nothing Loves Me” to anti-celeb culture bellow-along “Big Dogs” to the Beastie Boys-meet-nu-metal groove of “My Way”. As bouncy but wryly potent are the tracks where Bigland addresses his tough times, such as the relentless riffage of “Sick of Being Down” and the catchy title song (“Suck it up/Times be rough/Fucking 2020, man/What the fuck!”).
And there’s a load more of Dinosaur Pile-Up’s well-honed, easy-going good time. 12 songs in 40 minutes. Indeed, it picks up where they left off. One can only hope their fans do too.
Below: watch the video for "My Way" by Dinosaur Pile-Up
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