Album Review: Dirty Heads - 'The Best Of Dirty Heads'

Back in the early 2000s, a band emerged from a garage in Californa armed with the musical spine of Sublime With Rome and an invigorating multi-genre brew of reggae, rock, hip hop and Southern Cali chill; enter Dirty Heads and their vacay-ready tunes.

Starting life with a sonic disposition as sunny as their Orange County surrounds, Dirty Heads have spent close to two decades cleaving reggae tinges amid some stylistic shifts along the way, most recently enjoying a renaissance with their 2017 track Vacation going viral thanks to the burgeoning TikTok #vacationtransition trend.

While few could've predicted that a song released nearly four years prior would prove to be an ongoing hit for any band; with over 2 billion views on TikTok alone for Dirty Heads and the #vacationtransition craze, it's ultimately not the first time the Cali group have experienced a late resurgence, with their appropriately titled 2014 full-length Sounds Of Change breathing new life into the Dirty Heads love affair and ultimately claiming a breakthrough moment for the group almost ten years since their formation.

After recently dabbling into what frontman Jared 'Dirty J' Watson described as a "70's sci-fi kung fu Western car chase soundtrack" on 2019's Super Moon, it was truly anyone's guess as to where Dirty Heads would turn their heads to next; but, as we all recently discovered, the group turned their gaze firmly to the past as they continued to carve up millions of new fans around the world, resulting in the release of their The Best Of Dirty Heads retrospective - fittingly smack dab in the middle of the California summer.

Across the space of thirteen tracks, the Dirty Heads gang is certainly all here, with the monster hit Vacation bookending proceedings, including a new version to close featuring guest vocals from Grammy-winning Train frontman Pat Monahan. For diehard fans, the 'best of' functions as a proverbial box of chocolates, with many of the band's breakout hits like Lay Me Down, Dance All Night and Oxygen making the cut, alongside some fresh collaborations with blink-182's Travis Barker and Aimee Allen from The Interrupters.

Releasing a 'best of' in the midst of TikTok stardom and an ongoing global pandemic may sound, on paper, like a recipe for strange sonic bedfellows; but this latest release from Dirty Heads is ultimately indicative of the group's effortless ability to simultaneously evolve and charm in a way that feels equally familiar yet fluent. Those already on board the Dirty Heads train will welcome the new flavours with gusto, while those discovering Dirty Heads for the first time are in for a treat as the creamy grooves and modern nostalgia hits like a warm, summer breeze.

At its best, The Best Of Dirty Heads is an intoxicating bridge between So Cal chill, sharp polish and heady carefree days spent sans face masks in the sun. And in a year where people continue to be pushed to their emotional brink after so much uncertainty and change, a revisit into the luminous world of Dirty Heads may just be what the doctor ordered.