Dehd

Set apart by their direct, stripped-down approach, Chicago trio Dehd’s infectious pop songs come saturated with reverb and hit hard with minimal drumming, powerful vocals, and uncluttered arrangements. Well-received releases and frequent touring grew the band’s fan base, and their sound took on a sharper definition with albums like 2020′s Flower of Devotion and 2022′s more personally drawn Blue Skies. For their 2024 LP, Poetry, the group traveled to various places throughout the United States to focus on writing and recording the material, imbuing the songs with a spirit of wandering adventure and searching. Dehd was formed in 2015 by Chicago musicians Jason Balla and Emily Kempf. They enlisted their friend Eric McGrady as the drummer. McGrady, who had never played drums before joining Dehd, used a simple setup consisting of just a floor tom and snare. This minimal approach followed through to the rest of Dehd’s sound, which found echoey vocal harmonies swimming in straightforward songs that borrowed from both girl group melodrama and the buzzy noise of C-86 bands, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and even hints of Gun Club darkness and B-52s celebration. Dehd released a self-titled album in 2016 and toured often. In 2017, they followed up with the six-song EP Fire of Love. The upheaval of a breakup was channeled into songs for their 2019 album, Water, which was critically adored. The band quickly returned the next year with Flower of Devotion, a record with heightened production values and a more defined reading of their melancholic, dreamy sound. Flower of Devotion arrived in July 2020, a time when most touring and live performance was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While waiting to get back on the road, Dehd readied Flower of Devotion Remixed, a companion piece to the album that included remixes from Lala Lala, Miranda Winters, Protomartyr, Freak Heat Waves, and many others. The group’s fourth album, Blue Skies, arrived in May 2022. The set pushed the trio’s sound even further with increasingly polished production, subtle experimentation with electronics, and a more emotionally straightforward lyrical approach. For their next album, Dehd traversed the United States, writing and recording at an Earthship in New Mexico where Kempf now lived as well as at a cabin in Washington. While Balla and McGrady were en route back to Chicago, their van was destroyed when they hit a deer, and they were stranded in Montana for a few days. The entire experience of being in motion and in uncertain waters came through in the emotional tenor of the resultant album, Poetry, which was released in May 2024. ~ Fred Thomas