A second look at the 1986 masterpiece
Dwarr
Animals (reissue)
Drag City





These days, recording a
minor masterpiece in your
bedroom is well within
the realm of possibility.
But when South Carolina
plastic factory worker
Duane Warr (aka Dwarr) recorded his spookily
brilliant Animals in 1986, such an undertaking
took will, resourcefulness, and vision. In
Dwarr’s case, the vision is dark and deeply
personal. And Animals is a disc of absolutely
haunting, home-fried outsider metal that’s
as immediate and unsettling as Syd Barett’s
Opel or any of Robert Johnson’s hazy netherworld
transmissions.
Apart from a hired drummer, Warr played and recorded all the instruments to a Tascam 8-track. Timpanis, cymbals, bells, and gongs borrowed from a local high-school marching band help build an ominous, doomful wall of clang around psychedelic- and prog-tinged metal riffs and acerbic lead lines that sound like Ummagumma-era Gilmour, Fripp, and Iommi cut to pieces and glued back together as some garage-spawned Frankenstein. Amazing, eerily inspiring, and super scary!
Animals (reissue)
Drag City
Apart from a hired drummer, Warr played and recorded all the instruments to a Tascam 8-track. Timpanis, cymbals, bells, and gongs borrowed from a local high-school marching band help build an ominous, doomful wall of clang around psychedelic- and prog-tinged metal riffs and acerbic lead lines that sound like Ummagumma-era Gilmour, Fripp, and Iommi cut to pieces and glued back together as some garage-spawned Frankenstein. Amazing, eerily inspiring, and super scary!