Album Spotlight: Orca by Gus Dapperton

This week I was super excited to see one of my favorite artists all over the high school and college radio charts- Gus Dapperton! I’ve been listening to his music since freshman year, so you can imagine how hyped I was to listen to his newest album, Orca, that he released just last month.

Gus has such a wonderful sound. His fun indie-pop tracks have always been a favorite of mine- not to mention his knack for weird and wonderful lyricism. There has been this sort of dreamlike, whimsical feel to his music in previous, but Gus took a different approach with Orca. In his own words, “It’s about self-reflection,” which is a side of Gus we haven’t really gotten to know before.

Orca is, quite largely, Gus recounting the way he felt throughout his high school years as he has begun to feel similarly again at such a wild time in his life. I was surprised at how much these tracks resonated with me. Of course I’ve always enjoyed his music, but it hasn’t ever been something I could understand lyrically. Tracks such as Medicine and Post Humorous felt very real to me. 

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Still, maybe some slow, sad music about emotional vulnerability isn’t your speed. Don’t worry though, these are some of my favorites in terms of sound as well. His voice! It came through incredibly on this album- the riffs and the licks are so much fun, and I don’t think I’ve heard him go this hard on the vocals before. The feeling in his voice was poignant in the greatest way- this album truly isn’t something to pass up!

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