Formed in Liverpool in 2018 by former Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster frontman Guy McKnight, THE DSM IV crystallise the ultra real and the otherworldly, bringing a focused hyperrealism to the party. Their convention-defying live performances toy with audience expectations and stimulate questions of the narratives being sold to us as news—or entertainment—all to the beat of the drum machinist.
As if pontificating from a lectern, McKnight sings and gesticulates like his life depends on it, his lyrics enticing or lacerating depending on the mood the band conjures. In an age of perversion of reality, justice and truth, THE DSM IV poetically reflect on our world’s hypocrisies and dilemmas, with danceability, intelligence, indignation, grace, style—refreshing purity for these polluted times.