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Dentist

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Asbury Park group pairing reverb-soaked surf guitar with bright pop hooks that turn out to be a lot bleaker than they first sound.

Dentist is a trio: vocalist and bassist Emily Bornemann, guitarist Justin Bornemann and drummer Matt Hockenjos. Emily and Justin had already played together in the Asbury Park indie rock band No Wine for Kittens before forming Dentist.

Their debut singles, "No Matter" and "I Do It Cause I Wanna," arrived in late 2013 and early 2014, ahead of their self-titled debut album on Good Eye Records that May. The record gathered songs the band had already been playing live through its first year together, and it earned them the Asbury Park Music Awards' Top Indie/Alt Rock Band prize.

Their second album, Ceilings, followed on Little Dickman Records in 2016, mixing surf rock, pop punk and dream pop into a set critics described as flowing together as one continuous piece. Comparisons to Best Coast, Wavves and the Drums followed them through this stretch of their career.

Night Swimming, released on Cleopatra Records in 2018, was described at the time as their most detailed record yet, its loss-of-innocence lyrics sitting under the same fuzzed-out guitar tone. A fourth album, Making a Scene, followed in September 2022.

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