GROOVE ART FEATURE
Twelve Days In June
Stone Tape Theory
Schenectady, NY’s Dave Hulegaard knows exactly what he’s creating.
Twelve Days In June, Dave’s prolific studio project, makes a heady blend of 90’s alt-rock, grunge, and shoegaze. The combination, in Dave’s hands, is potent, and elevates each element of his influences into something much, much greater than the sum of its parts.
There. Now we’ve drawn a box, albeit a big one, around Twelve Days In June. What can we say that hasn’t already been said by others?
Imagine Smashing Pumpkins, if they kept the same ambition that defined Melon Collie through their entire career, and if Billy Corgan had a voice that didn’t scare your grandma.
While I suspect Dave would appreciate that summary, it still really doesn’t capture the scope of this band, or this absolutely immense album.
Perhaps it’s best, as a listening guide, to simply start with the things that make us love TDIJ:
Hulegaard gets huge, shimmering, gorgeous, heavy, back-breaking energy and clarity out of his studio time. Layer upon layer of guitar, but every one with a job to do. These are precision strikes. The mixes are phenomenal.
TDIJ records always contain plenty of nostalgia-inducing flavors from that glorious moment in 90s alt-rock when rock got bigger, more interesting, and more daring while shedding the pretention and cheesiness. But TDIJ always finds a way to make it bigger, deeper, wider, and - oddly - prettier.
Hulegaard has a talent for finding melodies that feel obvious even though they aren’t, that feel simple but are deeply evocative, and then delivering them with no hint of rock star swagger in his vocal delivery - just “here I am, take it or leave it”. We’re takers.
Stone Tape Theory, the sixth TDIJ album, is one of the biggest records I’ve heard in a long time, an absolutely pummeling train ride through Hulegaard’s mind, and the world we all find ourselves trapped in at the moment.
Between trying not to screw up raising two young boys, being a husband, and not spiraling into despair at every new turn of world events, I don’t often allow myself the kind of emotional bandwidth that it takes to properly digest a TDIJ record. What first hooked me on their work was much, much more vulgar. A face-melting guitar solo. I know, so cliché. But have you heard “Undertow” off their previous album, Hiraeth? The scale of it made me look up from my work and I think it was a good hour before I went back to my desk.
Once it clicks, though - who Dave is and what he’s doing, every TDIJ release is appointment listening. And Stone Tape Theory is no exception.
From the outset, with “Another Dusk, Another Dawn”, it’s all there. The scope, the delicious riffs, a wall of sound where nothing sounds muddy and everything has a place, the melody, the solos. It’s so satisfying to hear a record and think “he got exactly the sound he wanted - this must be what it sounded like in his head”. I mean, it’s infuriating too - for those of us that regularly try and fail to pull off that trick - but really, really gratifying to watch it fall into place for someone else.
On we go, through the belly-crawling bass groove of “Thrall” to the stellar power ballad (if we can call it that) “Melanie”.
Melanie was a girl I hurt back when we were young, and I don’t remember my words, but she does…oh she does…
The wall of sound on this one will make you feel like you’re drifting away from your body, until the moment Hulegaard intones the cycle stops with me, and suddenly you slam back into the real world and start trying to parce the whole story.
“Raining In London” and “River” - while occupying two different ends of TDIJ’s energetic spectrum, are both imaginable as the best song played on MTV all day when I was 13.
“Monster” kicks off what you could call the “political” stretch of Stone Tape Theory. There isn’t much to second guess once Hulegaard wails there’s a monster in control with all the power and a cult. But the arena anthem bass line and the head-banging grungy groove make it too much fun not to sing along with we’re screeeeeewed even if you know it’s kind of… true. This is probably the purest grunge song on the record and it’s perfection.
The next few tracks see-saw through TDIJ in “make ‘em swoon” mode and "get them moshing” mode. “Indoctrination” is wild, heavy, sweaty, brutal, and undeniably fun. “Spiral” is particularly beautiful.
“Bereft” might have been the best song on at least one album of each of Dave’s heroes. I never know where to even focus when this song comes on. The astonishing drum performance? The way the multiple guitar tracks continually change the depth of focus and lead you through the track? Putting a song like this in 10th position on an album of 12 songs means you have more gold than you know what to do with.
Before getting to a typically epic closer, Dave treats us to one more grunge buffet on “Sorry About Your Dick” - yes, you can imagine what it’s about, and yes, it’s incredible.
After the breathless joy of “Dick” - and probably an obligatory re-listen immediately thereafter - we arrive at “Echoes”, which commences with the line I don’t matter, for an algorithm tells me so - and then 7 minutes of Hulegaard proving that the algorithm doesn’t know a damn thing. The first 5 minutes are perfectly in line with the rest of this record, a killer TDIJ song with all the fixins I look for.
And then, around the 5 minute mark, Dave gives the people (well, me) what they really want. He plays us out with one of those face-bludgeoning guitar solos, just to make sure you don’t forget that you just took the musical equivalent of a motorcyle ride down the walls of the Grand Canyon.
Despite its regularly morose, melancholy, and pensive subject matter, I found Stone Tape Theory to be, at root, a deeply joyful experience. This is a human being - a team of them, in fact - creating something that can only come from incredibly sharp minds dedicated to something beautiful, years of experience and dedication and skill in service of a vision, emotional honesty, and love.
I love Twelve Days in June, and I fucking love this record.
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