Dummy – Do You Love the Color of the Sky?

Some sounds are just instantly identifiable the moment they emerge. As soon as a high-energy breakbeat rhythm and glistening guitars kick in on “April Limousine,” the opening track to Dummy's third album, it’s clear that the Los Angeles-based quintet is operating in an entirely different dimension. Not that the band is simply looking backward to push its sound forward. But for an elder millennial like myself, the track immediately brought back memories of Amp, MTV’s pioneering late-night showcase for electronic music, where hallucinatory computer animations once opened portals to worlds of childlike wonder.

In short, the aptly titled Do You Love the Colors of the Sky? boasts a timeless quality that challenges the eras it evokes. Amid the current frenzy of shoegaze-informed bands—and a recent resurgence of interest in the Madchester movement that they explored two years prior on 2024’s Free Energy—Dummy’s willingness to go against the grain is commendable. More importantly, they have the chops to back it up. The smooth, trance-like washes of “Squeaky Wheel” and “Alluvial Fan” reveal understated but effective hooks taken from Stereolab’s playbook. Meanwhile, the pulsating rhythms and chord shapes of “Song of Mana” twist and morph in unexpected directions, guided by the pull of the dancefloor. That they pair these songs with cryptic lyrical expressions only heightens the music’s allure.

If there’s a track here that signals Dummy coming into their own, it’s the rapturous “N of 1,” which touches on the anxieties of constant surveillance through a droll, yet oddly soothing delivery. It’s a balance that offsets the album’s looser moments, which, for all their exuberance, can sometimes seem either underwritten (“Omen Globe”) or stick too close to the source (”Touch the Perfect Speed”). But what Dummy conjures throughout is a sense of euphoric escape, leaving behind a lingering calm after its effect has worn off.

Do You Love the Color of the Sky? is out now via Polyvinyl.