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Destruction Unit releasing the next 'Live In San Francisco' installment on Castle Face (stream a track)

by Andrew Sacher

D Unit

The next installment of Castle Face’s Live In San Francisco series comes out on February 23 and features raging Arizona psych-punks Destruction Unit. Here’s what Castle Face label head (and Thee Oh Sees frontman) John Dwyer has to say about it:

In the distance is a speck surrounded by points of light, the faint glow of a galaxy. It approaches with no great haste. It is merely floating towards you under its own massive weight and momentum. Its size becomes more apparent as it advances. The low rumbling engine is an overture. Bits of space trash ping off it’s hull. Certainly, you imagine, it’s drawing nearer and not actually sucking you in, consuming you whole…

Suddenly it is upon you and it is deafening, overwhelming…you are spun end over end, you’ve lost all send of original direction, you no longer know where you are…damaged, rent by antennae and crisped by the afterburners…after a great while and a seemingly endless tumult, you are abandoned amid debris, floating as the engines once again slowly hum off into the distance.

This is a Destruction Unit song.
Very heavy, very far out –
Massive fortification –
Endless building and tearing down –
Introduction religious in its immensity –
Outro decaying gloriously in the distance

I believe Destruction Unit to be one of the most important underground bands in America.

The live shows vary from dense chaos to dumbstruck pandemonium.
The volume is always colossal.
The spectacle, dramatic.

Putting microphones on these Arizona weirdos is similar to trying to get a decent recording of a soccer riot – getting Ryan to sing into our microphone like shooting a hummingbird with a spitball from across a gorge…

…but we’ve done it. Polished up and pushing the red, we present this deathless comet captured to tape. Headphones on, lowlights flickering, spliff in hand – you are a warrior on the dawn of a new perilous passage…until you have to flip the LP.

Enjoy

– John Dwyer

We’ve got the premiere of “Bumpy Road,” which you may recognize from their excellent 2013 LP, Deep Trip. But as anyone who’s seen D Unit live knows, they rarely play a song the same way twice, and this is one band who truly benefits from a live album. That’s the album artwork above. Check out the song, with the tracklist, a couple more live photos of the band, and tour dates (none in NYC), below.

D Unit

D Unit

Tracklist:
1. The World On Drugs
2. Slow Death Sounds
3. Bumpy Road
4. Night Loner

Destruction Unit — 2015 Tour Dates
03/08 Las Vegas, NV – Bunkhouse
03/10 Dallas, TX – Three Links
03/11 Memphis, TN – Hi-Tone
03/14 Columbia, MO – Café Berlin
03/15 Austin, TX – SXSW
03/16 Austin, TX – SXSW
03/17 Austin, TX – SXSW