Dust
were almost an ideal cult band: a group that were of their time but never belonged to it, yet its members became better-known later, with drummer
Marc Bell
becoming
Marky Ramone
and bassist
Kenny Aaronson
joining
the Stories
, a band the singer/guitarist produced along with
producer
Kenny Kerner
. Of course, neither 1971's
or its 1972 sequel
Hard Attack
-- both combined on this
Legacy
two-fer from 2013 -- sound anything like the breakneck punk of
the Ramones
or the Baroque pop of
, nor is it quite the proto-metal of its lore. Instead, the two albums find a power trio adrift in the mythic murk of the early '70s, sometimes recalling a bit of the towering cinematic crunch of
Mountain
, sometimes the folk-art-blues of
Jethro Tull
, occasionally dipping into a bit of blooze boogie but not as often as they dabble in some of the majestic art rock muddle of early
Deep Purple
. They can be heavy, they can be loud, but there's too much color and too many acoustic guitars for this to be easily be pegged as metallic. Instead, it's where acid rock begins to unravel, hitting very hard before receding into faux hippieland, peppered with pseudo-profound tales, but it's always clear that
would rather be "Chasin' Ladies." All this makes
read a lot more interesting than they sound: they have these unformed ideas, unwitting allusions, and gangly gallop that are kind of intriguing on their own terms but never quite add up to more of the sum of their parts. A great cult item, in other words: listening to it, you can hear why people love it, even if when you can't fall for its charms yourself. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine