Dizzy Bridges’ new album is holistic, with hidden themes and lyrical depth to decode. Up for the challenge and armed only with the hint “Spoon-meets-Carlo Rovelli,” I enveloped myself in the poetry and existential questions of this Iowa-based art-rock quartet.
Starting with patterns within my grasp — separate from ideas of physicists and time — I noted the subtle inclusions of borrowed lyrics from Bob Dylan, along with a couple of lines from Paul and Linda McCartney’s deep cut “Heart of the Country.” These Easter eggs, a marvelously insidery game of I Spy, fit deftly within the psychedelic, orchestral soundscapes and rhapsodic detail to which the album dedicates itself.
The instrumental experimentations are delightful and impressive from start to finish. Through each sonic twist, a fluttering piano is a comforting mainstay, guiding the melodies upstream, practically skating on glass.
“Getting time” kicks off these unconventional choices with cascading counter-melody piano notes, wailing guitar solos and breathy sighs reminiscent of The Zombies’ “Time of the Season.” “Bit better” matches cellos with guitar rock for a harmonious, but provocative, partnership. Within “Nova (break),” the band fully breaks into the psychedelic, slowing down and caking on reverb that falls squarely into Beatles territory. And even later, a cacophony of horns explodes out of the moody tenseness of “What is time?”
Speaking of time, the aforementioned Carlo Rovelli, cited by Dizzy Bridges, is an Italian theoretical physicist known for his ideas on the notion and, more specifically, the order of how quantum time flows. Or, simply put for the reviewer out of her depth, the idea that time doesn’t happen linearly. And in Dizzy Bridges’ speak, since time is all out of order, “We’ll write this book in a straight line / That’s how you’ll keep this all straight in your mind.” The time here is cyclical, looped just like the melodic themes of notes and reoccurring choruses.
Charted across songs and the buzzwords, emblazoned and frantic, are circling thoughts of time — reversing it, looping it and running it out. The listener is pulled deep into the singer’s mind, hidden behind ’90s post-punk affectation, stuck on new time and new years and new stars. Spot the Pattern is philosophical poetry bathed in cellos and tinkering pianos.
The final track is a case of genre whiplash, but an eagerly accepted reprieve from 31 minutes of existentialism. “On New Year’s” brings warmth, punctuated with clapping and sounds of company, almost like the song is performed around the light of a campfire. Although not outwardly spiraling about time, the song acts similarly to a real New Year’s Eve celebration. If you sit long enough in the celebratory countdown, the existential dread of a new year rises above both the artificial warmth of liquor and the authentic warmth of company.
And in Dizzy Bridges and Carlo Rovelli’s world, what even does a new year mean?
This article was originally published in Little Village’s April 2025 issue.
