Dumbells - Up Late With (2025) Hi-Res

Up Late With, the debut by Dumbells, brings together an all-star Australian lineup featuring members of Shrapnel and Tee Vee Repairmann. Their sound is unpolished, idiosyncratic, and best summed up in one word: crunchy. This is a pop record, but only for those with a distorted sense of what a pop record should be. Melodic? Absolutely. Packed with hooks? Without a doubt. Polished? Not even close. Dumbells bury their hooks in just enough noise to filter out casual listeners, drawing in the true underground rock ‘n’ roll devotees. No wonder Total Punk decided to release this on their Mind Meld Records imprint—Dumbells may be made up of four punks at heart, but they’re channeling something bigger here: a raw, psych-infused indie rock ‘n’ roll sound that transcends genre boundaries.

Front to back, Up Late With is stellar. A track like Not So Hard (originally by NRBQ) would be the highlight of most albums, yet here it’s almost casually tucked into the final stretch. The song is just one example of how Dumbells balance strong songwriting, great melodies, and harmonies with instrumentation that feels both logical and completely unpredictable. Despite the press release calling them “quirky,” I’m struck by how conventionally effective their songs are—then totally blown away by how they twist and reshape those conventions. Dumbells have access to the same chords and notes as everyone else, yet they always seem to choose the right ones, placing them in the most exciting order.

This is a record packed with two-minute songs bursting with ideas, making the 30-minute runtime feel much longer—yet still leaving you wanting more. Seeds is a super catchy garage pop nugget that keeps getting distracted by some glorious guitar shredding. Automaton opens with a jangly guitar riff straight out of Big Star’s playbook before bridging ‘70s classic rock and ‘90s indie. Dumbells pull from all kinds of influences, and the only reasonable response is to let these talented weirdos do whatever they damn well please.