DM3: West Of Anywhere

Perth goes power-pop with Australian ‘best of’.

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DM3 have been around since the early 90s, and while the rest of the Western world was getting serious with grunge, the band couldn’t dampen the sunny pop that reflected their surroundings and their true nature.

Fronted by Aussie veteran Dom Mariani, they may have arrived at the wrong time to make the biggest impact, but their brand of lovelorn pop-punk rippled down through the spike-haired, big-shorted Warped Tour scene of the early 2000s.

This best-of makes it quickly apparent that throughout their career, they had one thing on their mind: girls. Girls they swooned after from afar, girls who dumped them, girls who rejected them. Basically, they were rubbish at talking to girls.

All of this angst is set to a soundtrack of fuzz-laden garage-based power-pop, with a little Beatles worship here (Take It All), a touch of dreamy, Posies-style haze there (Hold On), a shade of The Ramones dragged through primary-coloured paint elsewhere. A fun little monument to a blank refusal to grow up.

Emma has been writing about music for 25 years, and is a regular contributor to Classic Rock, Metal Hammer, Prog and Louder. During that time her words have also appeared in publications including Kerrang!, Melody Maker, Select, The Blues Magazine and many more. She is also a professional pedant and grammar nerd and has worked as a copy editor on everything from film titles through to high-end property magazines. In her spare time, when not at gigs, you’ll find her at her local stables hanging out with a bunch of extremely characterful horses.