Piet Dalmolen: “Time Stands Still” (2025) CD Review

You might know Piet Dalmolen as the guitarist and vocalist of Nucleus, a northern California jam band that released several albums. Time Stands Still is his first solo album, and it features all original material. In 2023, he went to Maui, and was in Lahaina during the wild fires there. It was from that trip that much of the music of Time Stands Still originated. Backing him on this album are Matt Engel on keyboards, Ian Taylor on bass guitar, and Tommy Fitzmaurice on drums.

The album opens with “Floating,” which has a rather pleasant sound and vibe right from its opening moments. The groove will likely have you smiling. This track gives the album its title in these early lines: “Seeking what is still undiscovered/Breathing through every peak and valley/Leaning into the next illusion/So I’ll wait for you/‘Til it all comes true/And it feels like time stands still.” This track mixes pop, jazz and psychedelic elements to create a wonderful sound. Toward the end Piet Dalmolen sings, “We’re in this together/Don’t forget humanity/Take care of each other,” lines that it seems at least a third of this country doesn’t understand at all, not even the least bit. There is some good guitar work toward the end as well. That’s followed by “Entropy,” which has some progressive elements. “Things begin and decay/Every day/Realize nothing lasts/It all must pass,” he sings here. There is something both positive and negative in those lines, in that idea. After all, some things we want very much to pass, and others we wish never would. I’ve been thinking about time and death a lot lately, and perhaps for that reason these lines jumped out at me. As terrible as the current fascist government is, a friend said to me recently, “We’re old, four years will pass quickly for us.” Well, either way, entropy seems to be the order of the day, and this song, I suspect, will speak to a lot of folks. Plus, it’s just a really good song. That line about things beginning and decaying reminds me a bit of a line from one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs, where Jerry Garcia sings, “The seeds that were silent all burst into bloom and decay.” This track also features an excellent bass line.

“Cosmic Joke” too has a great bass line, part of its cool, delicious groove. “Sometimes some people go crazy/And villains claim to be heroes/Sometimes it’s so dark you can’t see/So who knows.” Those are the song’s first lines, and that “So who knows” actually made me laugh out loud the first time I listened to this album, which I greatly appreciated. After all, those first three lines that precede it seem to describe our current situation pretty accurately, and so I was feeling a bit dark myself. And Piet Dalmolen quickly switched things up on me.  I appreciate not only the humor of that line, but its honesty. “Can’t take anything too seriously,” Piet sings a little later in this song. My motto, if I had one, would be something along those lines, even when things get serious. It’s a self-preservation thing, you see, as much as anything else. Who the hell wants a heart attack? Who the hell wants to let the current fascist group of nitwits be the cause of illness? This track contains some really nice work on both keys and guitar, and is one of my personal favorites. Then the instrumental track “Dropping In” has a good jazzy vibe from the start, sort of in the Brazilian realm, at least as it begins. This is another tune that feels designed to raise our spirits, for there is something pleasant about its sound, and also something that urges our bodies to dance. It slows down toward the end, entering into a more contemplative area, a more inquisitive, curious space.

“Life is what you make of what you see/Meaning we all create endlessly,” Piet sings at the beginning of “Being.” It’s true. We are all improvising here, in part because none of us really knows what the hell is going on. Be wary of anyone who claims to have the answers, for that person is surely full of shit. “The center holds/When everything else seems to spin out of control.” There is an undeniably catchy element to this track, and it features some cool stuff on keys. In the second half, it enters mellower territory during that instrumental section, which has a soothing effect and features some nice guitar work. That’s followed by “Falling Together,” which has another good, laid-back groove. The lyrics of this song also mention time. While on the first track Piet mentioned how it feels like time stands still, or at least he is waiting for time to feel that way, here he sings, “Time waits for no one/And it’s ticking away.” In fact, those are the song’s opening lines. Time is tricky, and seems to be based, at least partially, on our perceptions, so it makes complete sense to have two different experiences of time. For me, this second way of looking at it, of experiencing it, rings especially true. “Easy, can’t control it/Maybe it’s okay.

There is a somber feel to “Lahaina” from the start, like a darkness creeping in, something that must be dealt with, even as we feel like we are drifting into a dream. The landscape seems not quite real, altered in some way. Perhaps we can ease our way through, on that dream wind, and remain unscathed, for there is a beauty to this instrumental track. And I love the way it builds. The ending seems to come rather abruptly. Then “Shark Pit” comes on with a great surf rock and roll energy. This too is an instrumental number, and is a fun one to wrap things up. This track includes some excellent stuff on guitar, and there is even a short drum solo near the end. Yup, this album leaves us feeling good.

CD Track List

1. Floating
2. Entropy
3. Cosmic Joke
4. Dropping In
5. Being
6. Falling Together
7. Lahaina
8. Shark Pit

Time Stands Still was released on January 17, 2025.