Words by Kate Lockyer
You know those Sundays you had great plans for, but were spent hungover in a daze? And by the afternoon, you feel that grim but hopeful clarity of mind in which you decide to do better for yourself? DICE gives us a tour of the ‘Midnight Zoo’, but comes out the other side with that Sunday-afternoon introspection.
Following the critical acclaim of their 2021 debut and a breakout 2023 that included sold-out tours, international radio play, and a coveted spot on triple j’s Hottest 100, DICE have put out their debut album ‘Midnight Zoo’. While ‘Midnight Zoo’ might metaphorically refer to anything involving complicated feelings that happens at night, the name is also what the band called their recording studio, Tone City Studios. “It’s always been a joke that the studio is like a zoo and when it turns to night, that’s when the magic happens,” they say.
The band explains the album as a four-act play, each act reflecting a different emotional state and time of day. They say album opens with the pulsating energy of a late-night party, but as the sun rises, vulnerability seeps in, exploring themes of grief and resilience. The messy realities of self-doubt and relationships surface during the ‘hungover mid-morning’ section, while the afternoon brings a surge of hope and determination.
Dancing In Darkness starts us off with powerful guitar, capturing the thrill and surge of feeling that comes with the anonymity and escape from superficial judgements of dancing in the dark, not caring how you might look.
Masquerade similarly questions superficial perceptions, this time talking about how social media has become a masquerade, with no-one revealing their true selves. The lyrics are bewitching as they sing: “Kick up the dust / Dance with the moon / Everybody’s talking ‘bout ya / Got nothing to lose”. The band says it is their favourite song off the album: “It was song of many firsts for us. The first song Ben experimented with harmonies, the first track we finished writing in the studio and the first song we’ve experimented with a change in time signature.”
Immediately, Sunrise is more upbeat, with an earworm of a guitar riff that feels like the sun’s rays filtering through a window. “Can you teach me how to fly, to reach the sunrise?” Ben Hodge sings, as if realising there is a brighter future out there for him.
This is Not a Love Song is equally high energy, full of abandon in the chorus as Hodge belts out: “I’m too busy wasting time on love songs / Too busy losing control” and lead guitarist Tom Kim echoes the melody as if the sheer fierceness of his playing will cast off the misleading feelings that lead you to be with the wrong person. Drummer Sam Barrett-Lennard backs up the intensity with his beats.
Gentler, quieter Some Day has some surprising but lovely instrumental choices that mark a change from their usual guitar-driven style, including piano and strings. It is soulful, with lyrics like “If I had the chance to believe in what we made” creating a space of introspection. The band says Hodge wrote the song about the fact that while careers demand hard work and sacrifice, and relationships can be challenged because of it, this story is the message of hope that it can be saved someday.
Hodge murmurs into the microphone, his voice framed by jagged guitar in Oh Dreamer. That is, until the chorus, where the lyrics of flying away match DICE’s music, which lifts the track from a classic breakup song into feeling good about moving on.
Quick to Judge is defiant, the guitars and drums like a pal backing you up, ready to put anyone who wants to criticise you in their place. The lyrics have some fun lines like, “I don’t care what they say / I’m a lover, not a fighter,” and the chorus has a Velcro-like rhythm – it sticks with you. A foot-stomping instrumental features fuzzy guitar and quick, syncopated drums that build the energy of the song.
The next track Plead The Fifth expresses that inner nuclear core that grows in your stomach when someone is telling you you’re wrong, and you have to just stay silent rather than make the situation worse, though all you want to do is tell them how wrong they are. “I’ll plead the fifth while you start the fire,” the band sings, with restless riffs and beats boiling over.
Midnight Zoo seems to evoke rough seas with the short, sharp guitar and plenty of cymbals and high hat in the chorus. DICE says: “Midnight Zoo explores themes of addiction and breaking the dependency on whatever finds you growling in the mornings or feeling less of yourself.” The lyrics are upfront and a tonic in this world of social taboos and false impressions.
Their final track Storms continues the previous song’s – and the whole album’s – earnest thought. Keys and strings take us from the tumult of the night and the night’s consequences, and into this song which tells us: “It’s always a good thing to cry”. It is the final key to unlocking DICE’s sound, which reveals itself as not just high energy dancefloor numbers but also a gentle dawning of something new. Maybe it’s a heart to heart with a friend, or maybe just a Sunday coffee in the park.
With thanks to Positive Feedback
