Melbourne-based duo Divide and Dissolve are releasing their new album Gas Lit later this month, and following on from November’s single “Denial” comes today’s new stormer, “Prove It”. They say:
“Prove It – calls into question the need to prove you experienced something. If someone wasn’t there to witness it, it still happened and may have caused harm. Colonial power structures, power dynamics, and societal expectations rely on Black, Indigenous, and people of colour being Gas Lit and denying our experiences, because the predominant white supremacist narrative demands us to. When a tree falls in the forest, it has fallen. Prove It is about the acceptance of experiences of pain without expectation.”
While “Prove It” is instrumental as usual for Divide and Dissolve, there’s no mistaking the fury and sheer presence they bring to the track. The above quote adds some nice shading to the cauldron of emotion, but really the song speaks for itself in all its brutal, textural and impactful beauty. The guitars grind like tectonic plates, with fissures of air seeming to escape at intervals, only for the pair to double down on the weight of noise and feeling. A song that doesn’t need to reach far to wrestle your attention and pin it to the floor for its four minutes, “Prove It” is a challenge and a mission statement from Divide and Dissolve – and an unequivocal message to either join them in the fight against oppression or prepare to be steamrolled by righteousness.
Watch the video for “Prove It”, by James Robinson, below.
Divide and Dissolve’s new album Gas Lit arrives on January 29 via Invada. You can follow the band on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
