Dillon Warnek - As the Neighbors Tried to Sleep (2025) Hi-Res

Dillon Warnek has produced an album of rebellion, regret, broken promises and salvation wrapped in fatalism and dark humour. “As the Neighbors Tried to Sleep” begins with a real swagger. ‘Pistol and a List of Demands’ opens with great energy: piano and guitar with a pulsing beat lead the way in a romanticised tale of a renegade on the run. Warnek casts himself as a man living large, ready for a big payday or a bloody end. “There’s enough dynamite in my pockets/To blow you all through the roof” sings Warnek with a confident drawl which, apart from the obvious Freudian interpretation, sets the scene of a man willing to take on the law. There’s real defiance in the song too, “The judges want to lock me up/And throw away the key/It drives them crazy knowing I’m freer/Than they’ll ever be”. But there’s a desperation behind the bravado, “It’d probably look like the goddamn Alamo/By the time we’re done”. Warnek gives us no outcome in the song, so leaves the listener with no sense of whether the story ends in death or glory. A sense of self-destruction is taken into the next song, ‘Pretend You Miss Me’. This is a song full of gallows humour and tells the story of a man imagining his own funeral, which has no family there only a lover named Muriel. Warnek exhorts her to, “Dress in red and show a little leg and pretend that you miss me” – a tragic desire for a performance of love. Musically, the song keeps the slightly classic rock feel of ‘Pistol and a List of Demands’ but is a bit more bluesy with some great harmonica – and again captures Warneck’s great voice, which is reminiscent of Jagger on “Exile on Main Street”.

Some songs on the album emphasise the humour. ‘Other People’s Money’, for example, is a tale of Hedonism, recklessness, fleeting pleasure and, ultimately, consequence. A wild spree of indulging in luxury on stolen wealth – “And I lit myself a cigar/With a hundred dollar bill/And I put it out in my champagne” – ends with “I put the pedal to the metal/I leaned over for a kiss/And I must not have been watching/Cause I drove us off a cliff”. Again this is a song which feels like it nods to the 70s; it wouldn’t feel out of place sung by Ian Hunter or Alice Cooper and has some great boogie-woogie piano. The energy of the song adds to the humour. This is also true of ‘Bad Lawyers and Worse Luck’ in which a hapless narrator insists on his innocence despite mounting evidence. The song has a punk feel to it – vigorous guitars, bass and drums – and some great lines. “I wasn’t drunk in the Mexican restaurant/As for the piñata let me make it clear/I had no idea it was a chandelier”, for example, is laugh-out-loud funny.

Two songs feature the wonderful Margo Price. Both are slower-paced, mournful numbers. ‘Bluebird’ is a portrait of poverty, violence and disillusionment in America. Hope feels absent until the twist in the final line, “if Jesus ever comes back, I hope he comes back here”. Price’s voice adds some beautiful background, emphasising the sadness in the song. ‘Speeding Bullet Out of Georgia’, is a duet between Warnek and Price, and Price’s voice lends the song some real country authenticity. The song is another story, this time about a woman on the run after killing her abusive husband; she is determined to escape and start over despite hardship. Warnek does manage to weave some wry humour into the lyrics, “I had me a husband, he beat me black and blue/I stabbed him with a steak knife and my husband days were through”.

Behind the swagger and satire, Warnek also shows the ability to craft thoughtful, reflective and moving songs. ‘Born in 90’, for example, is a generational memoir with the narrator detailing family and financial struggles in the backdrop of 9/11. There’s a rather wonderful child’s perspective on tragedy in lines like, ‘Man those towers fell like they fell from heaven’. Some subtle Hammond organ adds to the soundscape, which is lower paced and works in great symbiosis with the lyrics. ‘Flowers’, another slow piano-led song, is a regret-filled plea for someone who has destroyed a relationship through neglect and betrayal: he knows it’s over, but can’t stop begging. There’s painful insight in lines like, “You want to know what something’s worth? Just treat it like it’s worthless”.

Final song, ‘Bad Accordion’, is a nostalgic look back at a wild, thoughtless love affair – and brings the album to some sort of conclusion. It is poetic, bittersweet and almost cinematic – equal amounts romantic and tragic. The recklessness of earlier songs such as ‘Pistol and a List of Demands’ and ‘Other People’s Money’ is echoed in lines such as, “Oh and those were the days, we had nothing to lose/Staring down the barrel just to prove we’re bullet proof”. And the sad parts of the album are reflected in, “Every silhouette I see that’s just some streetlight playing tricks” – an absence that continues to haunt. There’s a great, and fitting, outro to the song too: the joining together of rousing piano, guitars, drums – and above all Warneck’s expressive voice.

The only real flaw in the album is that it’s over too quickly. But that’s what repeat buttons are for – and you’ll likely find yourself hitting play again, chasing that mix of grit, dark humour and heartbreak Warnek has created.