On LOTTO, They Are Gutting A Body of Water (aka TAGABOW) make an honest attempt at vulnerability. “Let me love you like I don’t,” frontman Doug Dulgarian sings on “sour diesel,” amidst chime-like guitars that devolve into a frustrated, angular riff. It’s emblematic that on LOTTO, his voice finds room to breathe. Here, it’s audible and understandable, until it notices you listening, then it retreats behind the velcro-like distortion it usually resides in.
“Why did I get that real on a record? I love hiding behind shit,” Doug Dulgarian says in an interview. For many, to be vulnerable is to open oneself to the world. In this instance, a world that has enveloped everyone in a rat race for survival. A world of financial, social, and political instability. So, with everyone aching for relief, can we really blame those for trying their luck and potentially winning big? For buying another scratcher in the hopes that luck will bring them out of despair? For delving into criminal activity for a shot at some sort of stability? Through swirling guitar drones, rumbling bass lines, and euphoric breaks of electronica, this is what LOTTO aims to dissect.
What They Are Gutting A Body of Water present here is rooted from the mire of Dulgarian’s personal battle with sobriety—a relapse that brings a sharp sense of euphoria after a prolonged absence, or pushing the body’s limit for one more dose.
Make no mistake, LOTTO is a happy marker in Dulgarian’s life. “I’m grateful for my life / It could have never been,” he sings on “baeside k” as a chugging guitar riff cycles back into the forefront. The track—brimming with the high-octane noise we’ve come to expect—begets a glittering future as fluttering electronics calms the track’s final moments into a lull.
Opener “the chase” sees Dulgarian recount a fentanyl withdrawal on New Years. His stream-of-consciousness style delivery sits behind a metallic guitar, slowly building until unfurling with intense downstrokes and sharp noise. As he recalls the light in his girlfriend’s eyes (bassist Emily Lofting), we’re left with an ambiguous ending: a brash assault succumbing to an abrupt end. What comes after is anyone’s guess.
LOTTO does not present itself as hopeful. It continues the angular waves of noise that 2019’s Destiny XL and 2022’s Lucky Styles have established. Instead, it’s a personal confession masked in vacuum-like guitars and buzzing bass lines. “rl stine” introduces itself with immense vigor, with feedback swirling alongside hazy guitars and a straight drum beat. “If I’m down to my last / I’ll make sure to bust you in half,” Dulgarian sings, suggesting that he—whether it be his inner addict or some other unresolved emotion—shamefully urges others to engage in addict behaviors.
“American food” and “trainers” express the flip side—the downtrodden looking for some escape from reality. The latter sees Dulgarian singing on top of angular guitars with a straight drum groove motioning the track into a serene fantasy. Plucked guitars unwind into a hazy fuzz. His voice dissipates into nothingness as dissonant electronics carry the track into an unsettling finish.
On the closing track, “herpim,” Dulgarian is in a descending airplane. They’ve run out of gas. The cabin is shaking violently. And just as its crushing guitars reach a climax, the bass line moving erratically alongside a pounding beat, a breakbeat groove suddenly takes over. “The wheels touch the asphalt / And the whole plane claps,” he finishes before entering a trace-like dance groove. Dissonant harmonics quell as a reverse-reverberated melody carries the track into a sudden stop.
They Are Gutting A Body of Water are done hiding as LOTTO attempts to contextualize their aggressive musicality. No longer is their grinding noise a gimmick within an emerging renaissance. Here, it’s on purpose. It has meaning. And while their contemporaries continue reserving their gaze for their effect pedals, TAGABOW, for the first time, look up and meet the crowd eye-to-eye.
LOTTO is out now via ATO Records.
