If the breakthrough of bands like Turnstile and Leeway has proven anything, it’s that hardcore has just as much room for funky, Mike Patton-esque riffs as well as mosh-worthy breakdowns. One of the more recent adherents to the funk metal meets hardcore revival would be Upperground, a four piece hailing form Sydney’s hardcore scene who are just as keen to bring the fun back to hardcore as their overseas adherents are. Upperground see nothing wrong in taking on the funkiness and groove metal riffs that 90’s acts like Rage Against The Machine and Faith No More elevated an art form, while also injecting some breakdowns and “tough-guy” vocals into the mix just to make things more interesting. Their latest EP, The Upperground Sound is true to its name, displaying the bands sound with full force while also making for a quick-and-easy showcase of their motives and mission-statement as well.
“Intro/New Order” begins with vocalist Sarah Buckley stating “Play it hard, play it cool, this is the Upperground sound, fool.”, just before the band launches into a blisteringly fast riff that hearkens back to hardcore’s salad days in the 80’s (ala, Minor Threat or Bad Brains). However before you know it, the band switch gears entirely and go into an NYHC stomp and groove, that just begs you to start two-stepping on command. One thing I love about Upperground is how they manage to balance their more beatdown/NYHC elements with a more old-school hardcore sound, while still managing to sound quite fresh and enjoyable. “Unbreakable” starts off with the kind of heavy, funk metal riff that’d make Tom Morello nod with approval, before cranking up the tempo and going into a speedy 80’s hardcore riff. Then right after that, the band go back into a slow, chugging breakdown. They band are pretty tight when it comes to their instrumentation, if you want sloppy beer-swilling hardcore, you’re gonna have to look elsewhere I’m afraid.
It’s tempting to write Upperground off as a cheap Turnstile clone (even going so far as to have a similar sounding out-of-nowhere pop interlude at the end of “Don’t Pray For Me”), but they put so much effort into their music that you can’t help but be overwhelmed by the sheer force of it all. For a three track EP, this some fantastic hardcore music that’s just begging for some overseas recognition. The production on The Upperground Sound is pretty damn good for an independent hardcore release. Much like Turnstile, Upperground seem to have a flair for 90’s alt-metal production, and as such the album contains plenty of reverb on the drum, as well some chugging riffs for maximum mosh potential. You could easily this making the crossover onto Triple M or KROQ with ease. If you’re like me and thought Nonstop Feeling was something nice and a bit different amidst a sea of Terror clones, do yourself a favour and give these guys a listen. For a ten minute free EP, it’s well worth your time.
P.S. Special thanks goes out to my bro Aaron Ross for introducing these guys to me. Cheers mate 🙂
Pop punk has always been seen as the red-headed stepchild of the punk family. The sheer idea that someone would have the audacity to link pop music to something as rebellious and uncommercial as punk was considered a slap in the face to the eyes of the punk community. While bands such as the Ramones and the Buzzcocks had flirted with pop structures before, and their successors in the Descendents and Screeching Weasel took it to an art form, the idea of pop punk fully breaking into the mainstream was considered a pipe dream and a sacrilegious one at that. In 1994, Green Day’s Dookie and The Offspring’s Smash came close, with both going multi-platinum and landing on the number one spot in multiple countries respectively. However, these bands at least had a shred of respectability about them. Green Day emerged from the famed Gilman Street punk scene that spawned bands such as Operation Ivy and Jawbreaker, and The Offspring had spent the past few years paying their dues on Brett Guerwitz Epitaph Records, well-known for putting out records for SoCal scene luminaries like NOFX, Pennywise and Guerwitz’s own Bad Religion. However, Blink-182 were cut from a different cloth than their peers. Ultimately the trio of Mark Hoppus, Tom Delonge and Travis Barker would be the ones to unite punk rock and pop music in a way that no one had thought possible before, opening the floodgates for countless imitators and successors alike. And we have their 1999 smash-hit Enema Of The State to thank for that.
The groups previous albums Cheshire Cat and Dude Ranch had been released on a small San Diego-based indie label, Cargo Records, and gained the band a significant underground buzz in Southern California. Dude Ranch scored the band a huge hit with lead single, Dammit, which climbed all the way up to no. 11 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts, and gained the band some minor airplay on commercial radio and MTV in late 1997. Subsequent slots on the Vans Warped Tour allowed Blink-182 to build a sizeable international following, earning them fans as far as Australia and the United Kingdom in the process. As 1998 dawned, Blink-182 fired their original drummer Scott Raynor, for what they perceived as relative incompetence and a lack of dedication to the band. Raynor was then replaced with drummer Travis Barker, fresh from a stint in Orange County ska-punk band The Aquabats. The fresh sound that Barker brought to the group would prove to become a key reason in their sudden commercial dominance. For the follow-up to Dude Ranch, Blink decided to work with veteran producer Jerry Finn, who had experience in helping pop punk bands adjusting to their major label debuts, with engineering credits on Green Day’s Dookie, Jawbreaker’s Dear You and The Muff’s Blonder and Blonder to his name. Finn provided the band with a slick, radio-friendly sound, with Enema Of The State being so polished, that it bore little resemblance to the gritty, lo-fi recordings that had typified the sound of Dude Ranch and Cheshire Cat. However, this new sound would prove to be critical to Blink’s success in the near-future.
Enema Of The State was a watershed moment for pop punk, and by extension pop punk as a whole. The album took all of the elements that had made 90’s pop punk so great and wrapped it in a safe, MTV-ready package, ready for teenyboppers all over America to enjoy. “All The Small Things” would prove to be the moment when pop punk became a cultural force to be reckoned with. Written by former-guitarist Tom Delonge as an ode to his wife, as well as a tribute to the Ramones, it was primarily written to be a catchy radio single and ensure the album earned its keep for the bands new label, MCA. Unleashing the single in the first month of the new millenium, “All The Small Things”, with its familiar C F G progression, memorable chorus and boy-band satirizing music video, helped Blink-182 to gain a sizable fanbase well beyond the tiny Southern California scene they had emerged from. It climbed all the way up to the top of the TRL charts, and was subsequently retired after 65 consecutive days hanging around the chart Follow-up singles such as “What’s My Age Again?” and “Adam’s Song” proved the band weren’t simply one hit wonders, and knew damn well how to capitalize on their new found fame, repeating the same formula of comedic timing and catchy hooks which had made “All The Small Things” such a big hit. Even the deep cuts on the album weren’t that bad, “Aliens Exist” explored singer Tom Delonge’s fascination with UFO encounters, while “Mutt” remains one of the band’s more enduring singles-that-never-were, although it did make its way into the American Pie soundtrack, setting a precedent for future bands such as Sum 41 and The All-American Rejects. However, Blink-182’s antics did little to endear them to the critics of the time. The band’s overly jokey nature and seemingly carefree attitude towards commercial success clashed with the staunchly elitist scene police who seemed to populate punk rock at the time.
To those who had lived through Fugazi and held labels such as Lookout, Epitaph and Fat Wreck Chords close to their heart, Blink-182 and their enormous success must have seemed like a massive ‘fuck you’ to their way of life. Many music outlets were less than positive to Blink’s overly-commercial take on punk rock. British publication NME compared them to “that sanitised, castrated, shrink-wrapped ‘new wave’ crap that the major US record companies pumped out circa 1981 in their belated attempt to jump on the ‘punk’ bandwagon.” and Rolling Stone dismissed them as “harmless” back when Enema first dropped in 1999, presumably too busy drooling over Modest Mouse and Sigur Rós records to care about pop punk. Pitchfork wouldn’t even give Blink-182 the time of day, despite taking time out of their schedule to rip on Jimmy Eat World and The Get Up Kids. The fact that “Adam’s Song” paraphrases Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” is no coincidence. In many ways, to the horror of music historians everywhere, you can easily draw parallel’s between Blink opening the floodgates for pop punk in the 2000’s to Nirvana’s launching of the Seattle sound into the mainstream a decade earlier. While Nevermind was responsible for inspiring grunge wannabes such as Candlebox, Bush and Silverchair, Enema Of The State subsequently opened the doors for artists as revolutionary as Good Charlotte, Bowling For Soup and Avril Lavigne. Suddenly, the fangirls holding up the signs for Blink in the “All The Small Things” video didn’t seem so funny anymore.
It wasn’t all terrible though. The success of Enema Of The State allowed for the band’s fellow-minded Warped Tour regulars such as New Found Glory, Sum 41 and Fall Out Boy to break into the mainstream, which subsequently paved the way for labels such as Drive-Thru Records and Fueled By Ramen to establish their cultural dominance over the alternative music scene. In many ways, we have Blink-182 to thank for virtually directing the past 15 odd years of pop punk and all its related subgenres. You can hear the angst and pathetic lyrics of “What’s My Age Again?” in bands such as The Wonder Years and The Story So Far, while the flair for soaringly catchy choruses seems to have been transmitted to outfits like A Day To Remember and Chunk! No Captain Chunk. Even such critically adored indie acts contain traces of Blink’s DNA in them, with Pitchfork favourites Japandroids and Cloud Nothings embodying the energetic spirit and penchant for catchy hooks (dick jokes not included though). Even Nathan Williams of the bratty, garage rock outfit band Wavves listed Blink as a major influence on his output. Tjat surely must have thrown the hipsters for a spin when they realized King Of The Beach was just Take Off Your Pants And Jacket with worse production values and less lyrics about fucking dogs in the ass. The minute those opening chords of “All The Small Things” hit your ears, it’s like being transported into a state of undiluted enjoyment. If you’re open minded enough to appreciate pop punk in all its adolescent glory, give Enema Of The State a listen and get ready to re-live your primary school years all over again. You won’t be disappointed.
The Australian music industry seems to be built upon regurgitating the same ideas over and over again, while overly praising bands who stick to simplistic formulas and ignoring ones willing to take major risks. Bands such as Jet or Wolfmother can gain massive amounts of local acclaim for copying acts from the past, while bands from more niche genres such as Sleepmakeswaves or Karnivool get swept under the rug as an embarrassing stain on our oh so pristine musical legacy. And then you have the matter of tall-poppy syndrome, wherein acts who taste just a smidgen of overseas success are shunned by the Australian public and treated like they never existed (INXS and AC/DC excluded, obviously). Let me make something clear: this is not a list comprised of critically adored, Pitchfork approved artists who have been “making waves” in Australia for years. On that note, this isn’t a list of flavour of the month bands who scored a high-playing single on Triple J then were dumped by their record labels, either. This is a group of bands who I feel have been given the short end of the stick by music aficionados and the general public over time. Some have had hits, some barely tasted success, but either way, these artists deserve some damn respect from you people. I’m fully aware of getting multiple articles questioning my sense of patriotism and/or sexual orientation. Here we go.
10: Dirty Three
Warren Ellis is quite well regarded for his work with Nick Cave in both The Bad Seeds and Grinderman, but his side-project the Dirty Three doesn’t seem to be held in quite the same regard. This perplexes me, since Dirty Three definitely sound like friendlier to the ears than either of his main projects. Dirty Three’s music falls under the moniker of “post-rock” but unlike other bands in that genre, like Sigur Ros or Mogwai, Dirty Three’s work posesses an ethereal quality that sounds both otherworldly and yet distinctly grounded in reality at the same time. While most post-rock bands are content to dick around in the studio, fiddle with reverb and insert as many cryptic samples as is humanly possible, the Dirty Three let their musical abilities do the talking, with all of the band members being extremely proficient in their chosen instrument. Warren Ellis’s violin manages to sound reserved, without descending into cheesy new-age cliches, while guitarist Mick Turner manages to craft atmospheric and melancholic soundscapes with the ease of a professional. And Jim White manages to be the glue that holds the trio together, displaying the type of drumming ability that hearkens back to the krautrock and progressive rock bands of the 70’s, without sounding like a pale imitation. The groups 1998 album Ocean Songs is the perfect representation of the band, containing everything that makes Dirty Three great, clocking in at an impressive 66 minutes of pure bliss and magnificent soundscapes. It actually does feel like you’re in an ocean, floating along while the band soundtracks your adventures.
9: Parkway Drive
While Australia had a handful of hardcore and metal bands scattered around the country prior to their breakthrough, Parkway Drive were the ones to fully unite Australians in a wave of headbanging, moshing goodness. With a sound influenced as much by death metal outfits such as At The Gates and Cannibal Corpse as it was Bad Religion and Hatebreed, Parkway Drive single-handedly brought the Australian metalcore scene into the mainstream, laying the stage for fellow bands such as The Amity Affliction and I Killed The Prom Queen Bay in the process. Winston McCall’s gruff vocals, Ben Gordon’s psychopathically intense drumming and Jeff Ling’s penchant for hard-edged breakdowns helped Parkway Drive build a solid fanbase, both in Australia and abroad. 2005’s Killing With A Smile showed their love of hardcore punk and melodic-tinged metalcore, but it was 2007’s Horizons in which the group cemented both their sound and reputation. As pioneers, Parkway Drive were one of the first bands to take the Australian-bred metalcore sound internationally, performing on the esteemed Vans Warped Tour in the United States, while also embarking on multiple European tours as well. A near constant touring schedule has earned the band a solid reputation in the metal scene, and at least three of their albums have gone Gold in Australia. While commercial radio pays them no mind, and Triple J seems to barely acknowledge their existence, Parkway Drive shows that you don’t need radio stations to get your point across. As the kind of band who’s just as keen to play an all-ages festival in Brisbane, and then bring the house down at a packed club the next night, Parkway Drive are easily one of the most versatile and underrated bands in Australian history.
8: The Church
If there’s one band that absolutely do not deserve the tag ‘one-hit-wonder’, it’s The Church. Steve Kilbey and his merry band of jangly 80’s alt-rockers are so much more than “Under The Milky Way”, it’s staggering. Yes, it’s a great song. Yes, it was used to great effect in Donnie Darko, we get it. But did you also know that Starfish, the album it came from, is one of the most underrated albums of the 80’s? Did you know that the band released several other killer singles in the decade, such as “The Unguarded Moment”, “Almost With You” and “Reptile”? The Church pretty much took the spacey, psychedelic sounds of bands such as Echo & The Bunnymen and The Psychedelic Furs and put their own unique spin on it. These Sydneysiders were one of the more inventive bands to emerge from the Australian underground, eschewing the excesses of their fellow bands for a more traditional, yet still quite daring sound. They, along with their contemporaries The Triffids and The Go-Betweens essentially spearheaded Australian alternative rock throughout the decade, before grunge came along and everyone became content with ripping off Nirvana. Nonetheless, The Church’s string of albums in the mid-80’s from Of Skins And Heart up to Starfish remain some of the most compelling albums to have ever been recorded in the southern hemisphere.
7: The Basics
I’ve spoken about The Basics before briefly, when mentioning their troubles in gaining airplay from Triple J. With well over 1000 live performances under their belt, The Basics could very well lay claim to being the hardest working band in Australia today. Unlike the reserved and quirky indie pop of De Backer’s Gotye project, The Basics output tends to span multiple genres and the group is very unpredictable in their approach. It’s very hard to describe the overall sound of The Basics, since they jump around from genre to genre with the glee of a five year old on a sugar high. One minute they’ll be giving you a bloodthirsty diatribe in the form of the hard rocking “The Lucky Country”, next they’ll be playing you a breezy pop tune like “Lookin’ Over My Shoulder” and acting like it’s completely normal. The closest point of reference I can think of for The Basics in terms of sound would be Broken Social Scene, since both outfits have a penchant for experimenting with multiple styles of music and surprising their listeners with different tricks and song styles. However, whereas Broken Social Scene is a huge collective composed of at least a dozen members bringing a different genre to the table, The Basics happen to be three talented guy who display a clear love of pop music, but also love fucking with people’s expectations even more. After a short hiatus in 2010 where Wally found success overseas by teaming up with Kimbra and recording “Somebody That I Used To Know”, the group reunited in 2013 and have been touring and releasing great music ever since. I’ll admit it, I’m not the biggest Gotye fan on the planet, but De Backer’s work with The Basics is some of the most intriguing Australian music to be released in the 21st century.
6: Beasts Of Bourbon
Tex Perkins is something of an enigma amongst Australian musicians. In the span of half a century, the man’s fronted at least half a dozen bands, appeared on numerous television programs and even had a portrait of him win an Archibald Prize. Despite scoring a handful of hits in the early 90’s as the lead singer of Triple J favourites The Cruel Sea, my favourite period of the man’s was when he singing for the ass-kicking Sydney band, Beasts Of Bourbon back in the late 80’s. Beasts Of Bourbon took the heaviness of early 70’s Black Sabbath, the bluesy, rock ‘n roll swagger of AC/DC and mixed it in with the kind of garage rock sensibility that’d make The Stooges green with envy. The group’s 1991 album The Low Road is quite possibly one of the finest Australian albums from the decade, and “Chase The Dragon” still kicks all kinds of ass 24 years later. Tex’s throaty roar sends shivers down any man’s spine, while the rhythm section of Spencer Jones and Kim Salmon tear it up harder as any long haired metalhead could ever dream of. Supposedly, when Beasts Of Bourbon played the inaugural Big Day Out in 1992, they were the opening act for Nirvana. Henry Rollins, who was viewing the concert at the time claimed that he noticed Kurt, Dave and Krist all looking incredibly pale-faced and scared at Tex Perkins stage presence, wondering how on earth they were going to follow on from this titular beast of a band. Beasts Of Bourbon initially disbanded in 1993, while Tex found success fronting the indie rock outfit The Cruel Sea and spending his free time swimming in a sea of ARIA awards, when he wasn’t hosting RocKwiz or acting as Nick Cave’s backup singer/lighting technician. I managed to catch Tex last year when he toured with his current band The Dark Horses at the Tanks Amphitheatre in Cairns, and he sang a couple of Beasts Of Bourbon tracks. Over 20 years later, and that man can STILL bring the house down. So if you’re in the mood for some menacing, yet distinctly evil sounding music that skirts the boards between alternative rock and metal, give Beasts Of Bourbon a go someday. You shan’t be disappointed.
5: The Hard-Ons
While the UK was busy surrounding itself with street punk groups such as The Exploited and G.B.H, and the United States went for a more hardcore approach with acts like Minor Threat and Black Flag, Australians were left asking where the fun had gone in punk rock. Enter The Hard-Ons, a young group of upstarts from Punchbowl with a pimary-school sense of humor, who loved the Ramones and everything related to three chord pop punk goodness. The Hard-Ons picked up where The Saints and Radio Birdman left off, helping Oz punk rock to keep it’s sense of identity throughout the turbulent 80’s, remaining staunchly immature and regressive in the face of the new wave and post-punk era. Albums like Smell My Finger and Dickcheese ensured the artistically minded Melburnian types would have nothing to do with The Hard-Ons, however the band managed to develop an extremely strong cult following,that stretched past the groups hometown of Punchbowl. 1989’s Love Is A Battlefield Of Wounded Hearts made it into the top 10 in Spain and Greece, while rocketing into the NME top 5 in the UK, helping The Hard-Ons develop a better reputation overseas than they had in their own home country. They would later proveto be a huge influence on Australian punk bands to come in the following decades, with acts like Frenzal Rhomb and Bodyjar furthering the groups blistering surf-punk sound, while the guys in TISM carried on the bands warped sense of humor. Plus, their cover of “Let There Be Rock” with Henry Rollins on vocals completely blows the original out of the water.
4: Kylie Minogue
Kylie Minogue? “Surely you jest, she cannot be underrated”, you say. Over the course of her nearly 30 year career, Kylie’s managed to win a modicum of respect from critic and journalists, but it’s usually of the ironic variety, like the elephant in the room that demands to be addressed. As one of Australia’s biggest To many Australians, she’s still that canary-voiced blonde bimbo from Neighbours who fucked off to the UK and became a Stock, Aitken and Waterman puppet, peddling such dance-pop duds as “The Locomotion” and “I Should Be So Lucky”. It’s almost as if “Confide In Me”, “Where The Wild Roses Grow” and the entirety of Fever were total flukes, right? Unlike her contemporaries such as Jason Donovan and Rick Astley, who quickly faded into obscurity once the 90’s rolled around, Kylie broke out of the SAW trap and managed to strike gold on her own, and become one of Australia’s biggest exports in the process. But try telling that to Rolling Stone’s Australian centre and you’ll probably be laughed out of the building while desperate writers pelt you with Airbourne CD’s and spit in your face. I find it interesting how when acts such as Madonna or David Bowie reinvent themselves, it’s seen as “artistic maturation”, but when Kylie does it it’s viewed as “trend-hopping cash-in” (see: her collab with the Manic Street Preachers or her recent signing with Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella records). Admit it, you lose your shit whenever “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” comes on the radio and you might even enjoy it. If we keep this mentality of bands comprised entirely of white guys in skinny jeans and guitars being the only viable form of music, we get sucked into an echo chamber of endlessly derivative buzz-bands that contribute nothing to society and don’t make listners feel any particular emotions whatsoever. We need artists like Kylie to provoke strong reactions in people. If Australia’s musical canon was just composed of bland, vanilla bands like San Cisco and Icehouse, would we really be listening to music in the first place? No, we damn well wouldn’t, I doubt even Triple J themselves could counter that argument. Kylie’s proven she has the musical abilites to play with the best of them, if her collaborations with Nick Cave, Flight Facilities and the Pet Shop Boys prove anything, while she’s also shown to be an extremely capable pop singer in her own right. And come on, you’ve gotta admit that “Come Into My World” video was pretty cool.
3: Savage Garden
Kylie Minogue is one thing, but Savage Garden? If that’s not enough to negate every shred of credibility I’ve ever had, I don’t know what is. No matter what you think of the bands image, their look, you can’t deny that the duo of Daniel Jones and Darren Hayes were great pop songwriters. Savage Garden essentially took the template that groups such as Tears For Fears and Roxette had ran with the previous decade and updated it for the 90’s. Darren Haye’s soft falsetto combined with the group’s vaguely effeminate image (they named themselves after an Anne Rice novel) didn’t exactly endear them to the hordes of Spiderbait and Silverchair fanatics populating Australia at the time. I’ll admit, I’m not a huge fan of Affirmation,and the rather fluffy singles it spawned (although that video for “I Knew I Loved You” with Kirsten Dunst still brings a smile to my face), but the groups first album, Savage Garden, is basically a nonstop hit-parade of classic late-90’s pop rock. Tracks like “I Want You” and “To The Moon And Back” still sound damn great today and kin In spite of a less-than-stellar local reputation, Savage Garden managed to rack up five number one singles on the ARIA charts, with two of those (“Truly Madly Deeply” and “I Knew I Loved You”) going to number one on the Billboard charts. For an Australian act, that is an impressive achievement, not even AC/DC managed to pull that off. It’s one thing to write a breezy, three-chord folk song on a ukelele and be praised as a genius by Richard Kingsmill, it’s another to write a pop song that makes it into the Top 10 in America, then follow that up with two number ones. From the get go, there was no doubt that these guys were too big for Australia, you simply couldn’t keep pop songs this great locked down under. The duo’s self-titled album swept the ARIA awards back in 1997, beating out critical darlings such as Nick Cave, Paul Kelly and Crowded House in over 10 categories. It amazes me how INXS are considered one of the most important bands in Australian history, and yet these guys are treated as a total joke. Haye’s solo career might be a bit hit-and-miss, but you can’t deny that the duo’s work in the late 90’s
2: Pendulum
When it comes to dance music in Australia, we generally have a pretty blasé attitude towards the types of infectious grooves and 4×4 beats that other countries so keenly love. Australia never had its own Disco Demolition Night like the United States did, but we’ve never exactly produced many top-tier producers and acts of our own like the Europeans have either. We were totally cool with house, eurodance and big beat storming the charts in our country, but their weren’t a whole lot of Aussie producers getting major national attention in the 90’s. It wasn’t until about 2005, when a couple of boys from Perth by the name of Pendulum The group’s 2005 debut album Hold Your Colour broke Pendulum into the United Kingdom, selling over 225,000 copies and peaking at 29 in the UK albums chart. Producers such as Wave Racer, The Presets, Sneaky Sound System and Knife Party (ironically composed of former Pendulum members Rob Swire and Gareth McGillan) would likely not have blown-up had it not been for Pendulum making dance music a viable option for Australian producers. Pendulum helped bring drum and bass to the type of commercial prominence not seen since Goldie dropped “Inner City Life”. Tracks such as “Tarantula” and “Fasten Your Seatbelt” showed Pendulum had respect for drum and bass, but were keen on moving the genre forward as well. Despite this, Pendulum have been criticized heavily over the years for what many percieve to be the band’s so-called “commercialisation” of drum and bass. (multiple songs of theirs have been licensed for video games, commercials and movie trailers). For better or worse, Pendulum were directly responsible for dance music gaining a massive foothold in Australia in the years succeeding their debut. The past decade has seen multiple Australian producers take up the EDM charge, with producers such as Timmy Trumpet and Will Sparks going on to great success here and abroad, and to be honest, I doubt those acts would’ve been able to conquer the charts had it not been for Pendulum helping pave the way. Say what you will about Immersion, but it’s hard to deny Pendulum’s place within Australian music.
1: The Go-Betweens
Queensland is an important state in regards to Australia’s music evolution. Multiple bands, ranging from The Bee Gees to The Saints have helped shape the direction of Australia’s musical heritage in their own unique ways, but no band is more important than The Go-Betweens. In the mid-80’s, alternative rock in Australia was just beginning to take form. Bands such as Perth’s The Triffids and Sydney’s The Church were shaping the Aussie underground with their jangly, alt-pop tunes that hearkened back to the folk rock of the 60’s, while remaining firmly planted in the post-punk era. However, it would ultimately be Brisbane’s The Go-Betweens who would lead the charge of and bring the jangle pop sound into the charts. Australia’s music scene in the mid-80’s was incredibly dire, filled with meat headed pub rock bands such as Rose Tattoo and The Choirboys who would scoff at the kind of introversion and reserved nature displayed by The Go-Betweens. It was this attitude that caused The Go-Betweens, along with fellow acts such as The Birthday Party and Dead Can Dance to leave the country and seek success overseas. The interplay between Grant McLennan’s soft and rather sensitive approach, and Robert Forster’s deep and straightforward outlook contributed greatly to the band’s appeal. Songs such as “Cattle and Cane” and “Streets Of Your Town” ring true to anyone from the sunshine state, and the band’s beautifully jangly alternative pop sound put them up there with The Smiths and R.E.M. in terms of 80’s alternative icon. In many ways, the dual relationship between McLennan and Forster and their subsequent output was like Brisbane’s equivalent to Lennon-McCartney in terms of songwriting partnerships.
Albums like Before Hollywood and Liberty Belle and The Black Diamond Express showed the band finding their feet and experimenting with their approach, but the band’s 1988 album 16 Lovers Lane is arguably the peak of their evolution as artists. Displaying a fine balance between a commercial radio sound, while retaining the idiosyncrasies that made their early work so great, The Go-Betweens showed they could play with the big boys and yet still keep their own identity, without being forced to change their sound to gain attention. Sadly however, the band never got a huge amount of attention in their lifetime in Australia. Despite strong critical reception from NME in the UK and MTV’s 120 Minutes program in the U.S., The Go-Betweens seemed forever doomed to obscurity in Australia, only gaining slight airplay via Countdown and being almost entirely ignored by Triple J. However in the late 90’s, bands ranging from the effete Scottish power poppers Teenage Fanclub, to the Portland punk rockers Sleater-Kinney were all quick to namedrop The Go-Betweens as a direct influence on their music, showing how like many other underrated bands, they found success beyond the home country. Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein stated in an NPR blog that “In some ways, it’s easiest to say that [they] were Australia’s best pop group”, while Teenage Fanclub not only namedropped the band in one of their songs, but also toured with Robert Forster and contributed to a tribute album entitled Love Goes On! A Tribue To Grant McLennan and The Go-Betweens. The Go-Betweens showed that Australians could play with the best of them, and still come out victorious. They’ve even got a bridge named after them in Brisbane, how many other bands could lay claim to that? McLennan may have passed on from this world, but The Go-Betweens music shall live on, no matter what.
Hindsight is a funny thing. You can listen to a band years after their inception, think they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread and then find out that they were incredibly unsuccessful, made next to no money while they were together, and broke up soon after releasing their debut. That’s exactly what happened to Chicago-based group American Football, whose sole 1999 album has earnt the band the type of mystique and intrigue generally reserved for enigmatic acts such as Big Star or Rodriguez in terms of underappreciated artists. American Football were an emo group hailing from Urbana, Illinois in the late 90’s, who only ever released one album on then little-known Polyvinyl Records before quietly disbanding. Now you’d think this would be the end of their story right? Wrong. This one album would go on to become sort of a holy grail for emo in the 21st century, being cited by countless artists as a major influence, and re-assessing American Football’s cultural importance in the development of alterntive music. The bands fondness for gentle, twinkling guitars, Mike Kinsella’s soft spoken confessional lyrics would become something of a blueprint for indie rock and emo in the year’s after the albums initial release.
American Football first came into being in the middle of 1997, formed out of the dissolution of multiple bands. Vocalist Mike Kinsella had recorded previous tenures in influential 90’s emo outfits such as Cap’n Jazz and Joan Of Arc, and was currently a vocalist for a group named The One Up Downstairs. Internall issues caused The One Up Downstairs to call it a day, so Kinsella and drummer Steve Lamos went on to form American Football. The group signed with independent Champaign, Illinois-based record label Polyvinyl (years before they would become the home of indie powerhouses like Of Montreal or Japandroids), and released a 3-track EP. Roughly a year later, the group unleashed their self-titled album onto the world at large.
In the time period in which American Football released this beautiful slice of midwestern emo meets twinkly math rock, emo had yet to become a four letter word, most bands swore by 3-chords and the truth and The Get Up Kids were the closest thing to a “mainstream” group that the genre could lay claim to. The album’s varying time signatures and soft, bittersweet vocals mixed with twinkly guitars and overly confessional lyrics were something of an oddity. The sound of American Football was in huge contrast to other bands in the genre. The band lacked the atmospheric intensity of Sunny Day Real Estate or Mineral; while their slow pace and gentle instrumentation set them apart from their more punk influenced peers such as The Promise Ring or Braid.
Midsummer melancholy is quite possibly the best way to describe American Football’s overall theme and style. Much like the lone house depicted in the cover art, the album evokes images of suburban angst and emptiness.Mike Kinsellas’ lyrics focus on the transitional period between adolescence and adulthood and the collapsing of relationships, delivered with the kind of stony-faced deadpan vigour that would make Ben Gibbard blush with embarrassment. But the lyrics aren’t what sets American Football from its fellow graduates in the emo class of ’99. The main draw with American Football is the airtight instrumentation of Kinsella and co., and the downright brilliance of what these guys are able to accomplish within 40 minutes. Forget 10 minute guitar solos, all American Football need are some switching up time signatures and floating guitar instrumentation and you’re good to go.
Opening track “Never Meant” is the pristine centrepiece of the album. That’s not to say that the rest of the album doesn’t exactly hold a candle, but it does pale in comparison to the masterpiece of “Never Meant”. “The Summer Ends” slows down the pace by a notch or two, while Kinsella’s soft croon intertwines with the blunt trumpeting of Steve Lamos, creating a breezy and relaxed mood that transitions well from the angst of the previous track. “Honestly” begins as a simple track, with Kinsella’s ringing guitar scales going up and down the place, until the time signature changes at 1:50 and hits like a freight train. The track then continues on in this vain while distorted guitar chords and Vamos’s horn section swirls around in a dreamlike state.
“Stay Home” clocks at just over 8 minutes, and yet it feels far shorter than its runtime suggests. Mike Kinsella’s distant and introverted lyrics on the track sound like teenage mantras for the unloved. “Don’t leave home again/If empathy takes energy/’cause everyone feels just like you” could easily have been ripped from the page of any brokenhearted 16 year old, but in the context of American Football, it sounds like the most meaningful statement on earth. Due to the track’s long and repetitive structure, it bears more than a passing resemblance to Jimmy Eat World’s “Goodbye Sky Harbor” from Clarity, which was released a mere 7 months prior to American Football. In many ways, you could consider American Football the yin to Clarity’s yang, since while Jimmy Eat World sung about teenage heartache and hometown problems with the heart-on-the-sleeve angst and fiery determination of adolescent males, American Football focuses on the breakup and dissolving of meaningful relationships with an emotionally distant sense of regret, and a sense of maturity hitherto unseen in emo music. Before you know it, “The One With The Wurlitzer” hits and gives the album a serene send-off. Despite the title sounding like a rejected Friends episode, it’s easily the most laid-back and calmest sounding song on the album.
American Football’s impact on the world of alternative music was not an instantaneous one. The band broke up months after the release of the album, presumably to be written off as another footnote in music history. As the years progressed into the 2000’s, emo came to be associated with signifiers such as Hot Topic and teenagers with dyed hair and too much eyeliner. The emo period in the mid-2000’s was comparable to the Sunset Strip’s bastardisation of heavy metal in the 80’s, in terms of how far removed from its origins it had become. It’s quite a chilling thought to realise that somehow it’s possible to formulate a connection between American Football and Blood On The Dance Floor, but nevertheless, the genre prevailed. Then a funny thing happened at the end of the decade. Bands begun reaching back into the 1990’s and taking inspiration from the emo forebearers of the decade. And wouldn’t you know it, American Football happened to be one of the frontrunner in terms of bands getting long-overdue acknowledgement.
The impact American Football’s lone studio album had on the development of emo a decade after its inception could be comparable to The Velvet Underground’s influence on punk rock and alternative music in the late 70’s. Multiple high profile bands in the so called “Emo Revival”, from Dads to Foxing to The Hotelier to Tigers Jaw to even The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die have acknowledge the mopey midwesterners as an influence. Polyvinyl Records would go on to become an indie powerhouse in the 21st century, adding high-profile acts such as Of Montreal, Xiu Xiu, Deerhoof, The Rentals, STRFKR and Alvvays to their roster. Mike Kinsella would briefly reunite with his brother Tim and fellow ex-Cap’n Jazz members in the experimental outfit Owls, before embarking on a solo career under the moniker Owen. In March of 2014, Polyvinyl reissued American Football with a bonus disc containing live performances of several of the songs. A month later, Polyvinyl registered the domain name “americanfootballmusic.com”, which contained a countdown lasting until the 21st of April. Once the countdown ended, it was announced that American Football would reunite and tour the United States in honor of the album’s 15th anniversary.
While American Football still remains a highly enjoyable album, quite possibly one of the best albums of 1999 in my opinion (yes, it’s up there with Ágætis byrjun and Emergency & I in terms of alternative albums from that year), it’s funny to think about how the different emo would have turned out had the band never released this. Would emo have still gone mainstream and end up becoming one of the most polarising genres of the 2000’s? What would all those revival bands be channeling as opposed to American Football? Would we have had a bunch of Get Up Kids and Saves The Day revival bands instead? Would twinkly guitars have ever become a thing outside of cheesy 80’s soft rock ballads? Or am I simply overthinking what is a relatively enjoyable and uplifting emo album that remains a stone-cold classic of the genre to this very day and will presumably remain so? Whatever the case, if you haven’t heard this album yet in all its glory, go out and hear it right now. You will absolutely not regret it. Trust me.
One strange thing I’ve noticed lately would have to be hardcore and pop-punk kids getting into shoegaze of all genres. This is particularly perplexing, since as far as I can recall, Shoegaze has generally been one of those fringe genres that’s never really been popular outside of record collecting geeks and basement dwelling hipster shut-ins. So the fact that it’s now being seen as “fashionable” or “something cool kids like” is just incredibly baffling to me. With punk groups such as Title Fight, Basement and Pity Sex all incorporating the sound of ‘the scene that celebrates itself’ into their music, shoegaze is reaching a peak in popularity that hasn’t been seen since NME first laid their eyes on My Bloody Valentine. I figured in order to to help the enterprising young Tumblr users in terms of how to navigate the dark waters of shoegaze, I may as well write a clickbaity article about which bands to jock and to avoid for maximum exposure. Special thanks goes to Bronson, uppercut613 and Sergeant D from the blog StuffYouWillHate for inspiring me to write this article.
DON’T LISTEN TO THIS: Pity Sex
First off, skip pretty much three-quarters bands I mentioned in the first paragraph. They’re not all terrible (Title Fight’s new album is p sweet, imo) but they’re an unimportant stepping stone into truly getting into the genre, and Pity Sex are the worst of them all. Pity Sex basically sounds like a copy of DIIV, if they never got over high school and were content with turning teenage angst up to an artform. These guys are probably the whole reason Tumblr-kiddies have gotten into shoegaze lately, which should already be signalling warning bells. Aside from being extremely derivative and as generic as hell, Pity Sex have mainly garnered fans due to their mixture of twinkly American Football-core emo along with the usual fuzzy pop sound that comes with the shoegaze territory. Rather than sounding like the spellbinding crossover band that their fanbase makes them out to be, in reality they basically take the absolute worst elements of the “emo-revival” sound and the most bottom-of-the-barrel sounds of modern shoegaze in order to craft some of the most generic music this side of Topshelf Records Bandcamp page. I guess if you’re a 16 year old girl whose idea of “alternative” is listening to NPR and reading NME, these guys could be your favourite band ever. But to a guy who pretty much spent high school listening to My Bloody Valentine and going to shitty local shows instead of getting laid like a normal person, these guys just sound so run-of-the-mill that it’s annoying to say the least.
LISTEN TO THIS: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
If you want to do emotional shoegaze right, at least put some goddamn effort into it. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart are sort of a crossover act, having strong ties to the Brooklyn indie rock scene. Some people have referred to them as “tweegaze” due to them sounding rather upbeat and poppy, compared to the more maudlin acts on this list. But as someone who pretty much grew up on Green Day and Blink-182, I see nothing wrong with bands embracing their fun side, instead of remaining poe faced 99% of the time. The band’s debut album was a bit of a middling affair, which sounded sort of like Pavement covering a bunch of old C86 songs. For their second album Belong, the band decided to take things up a notch by hiring legendary 90’s alt-rock producers Flood & Alan Moulder to handle production duties on the album. The only way I can describe Belong would be imagine Angels & Airwaves covering M83’s Saturdays = Youth album, but if they had Billy Corgan on vocals and he had a head cold. If that sounds like complete and utter shit, just listen to the above song and tell me you don’t want to hear that in motion. They put out a third full-length last year, Days Of Abandon, which mostly abandoned the shoegaze sound for full-blown indie pop, but if you want a fun, mindless shoegaze album their first two are good for a spin.
DON’T LISTEN TO THIS: Whirr
In my opinion, Whirr are the absolute epitome of how not to do Shoegaze. Their songs are so dull and lifeless that you’d get more enjoyment out of watching paint dry. Imagine a duller version of Mogwai if they’d just discovered Big Muff pedals and that’s these guys in a nutshell. Their 2012 album Pipe Dreams is simply all style, no substance. It has a very cinematic and well-textured production, and I won’t deny that these guys have more musical chops than most other shoegaze outfits, but holy fuck the songs just meander and don’t go anywhere at all. It’s just some of the dullest and most boring music I’ve ever heard in my life. These make the Red House Painters sound like fucking Andrew W.K. with their commitment to making the most snoozeworthy tunes this side of one a chloroform warehouse. The only positive thing I can say about this band is that the band members seem pretty like pretty hysterical guys, they’ve been spotted on Facebook taking potshots at guys such as Anthony Fantano of TheNeedleDrop and various Pitchfork staff members, so at least they’ve got a sense of humor about themselves. Too bad I can’t say the same about their music, I’m afraid.
LISTEN TO THIS: A Sunny Day In Glasgow
If you want some shoegaze that’s both chaotic and hazy in equal measure without descending into total boredom, you can’t beat A Sunny Day In Glasgow. This foursome knows damn well how to make shoegaze that makes you want to pump your fist in the air one minute, then sink off into a dreamlike trance the next. Their latest album, Sea When Absent dropped last year and its heavy on the reverb, delay, effects pedals and everything else that makes the genre so beautiful. They sound a lot more cleaner and accessible than most other shoegaze bands, but they don’t skimp out on the soundscapes and wistful nature of the genre. They almost sound like a shoegaze version of Tame Impala at times, their music can lean a bit on the dreamy psychedelic side of the genre. tracks like “Byebye, Big Ocean” and “Crushin'” sound like they’d fit well in a modern teen drama, ala Awkward or The O.C. The thing that I love about about ASDIG is that they’re good at crafting longer, more intriguing songs, but at the same time they haven’t got their heads stuck so far up their ass that they sound like they’re trying to re-create The Wall.
DON’T LISTEN TO THIS: My Bloody Valentine
Okay, let me clarify this. I am in no way saying that My Bloody Valentine are a terrible band. They’re probably responsible for the existence of 90% of the bands I’ve just spent the past few paragraphs writing about. Shit, “When You Sleep” is totally a contender for best shoegaze song ever, along with just about half the other songs off of Loveless. My point is though, My Bloody Valentine are quite simply the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to shoegaze. My Bloody Valentine are a fantastic gateway band into the wonderful world of shoegaze, but by no means are they the be-all-and-end-all of shoegaze. You aren’t going to impress anybody by saying that you think Loveless is the greatest album ever and that no other band can compare to Kevin Shield’s production skills. You’re just going to look like you’re late to the party. If you still feel the urge to jock MBV incessantly, do yourself a favour and check out their earlier recordings prior to Loveless. The You Made Me Realise EP in particular is something of a fan favourite, and a great place to begin with.
LISTEN TO THIS: Lush
It honest to god perplexes me as to why Lush don’t get more recognition nowadays. Whenever people make a mention of the brief popularity shoegaze had in the early 90’s, they’ll make a point of singling out MBV, Ride and Slowdive, but poor old Lush always get the short end of the stick. I have no idea why, since their first two albums are some solid early 90’s shoegaze with a strong dream pop influence. Having Robin Guthrie of the Scottish dream pop outfit, the Cocteau Twins behind the mixing desk was a huge advantage for the group. It contributed to them having a more ethereal feel to their sound, rather than the dull, noisy drone that most of the other bands in the scene had. The group were even on 4AD records ffs, and that label was pretty much to Shoegaze what Victory was to 90’s hardcore. Personally, I believe it was their adherence to the 80’s post-punk sound that sort of sealed their fate. Later on they’d try and go down the Britpop path in an attempt at gaining some commercial success, (ala Ride, The Verve) but this did little to ensure the bands success and by 1998 the group had broken up. If you want some dark and moody Shoegaze, or are just sick of MBV clones, pick up Spooky and Split and have a blast with them. Avoid Lovelife at all costs btw, that album fucking blows chunks.
DON’T LISTEN TO THIS: Deafheaven
“Blackgaze” is a particularly gross, and ultimately terrible subgenre of shoegaze which melds the ungodly vocals and attitude of black metal with the washed-out fuzz of shoegaze. Much like how Pity Sex takes everything bad about 90’s basement emo and layers some effects pedals over it, Deafheaven basically take the tremolo-picking, satan-worshipping insanity of Norwegian black metal and applies it to the shoegaze template with less than stellar results. I singled them out in particular since, as opposed to other acts such as Woods Of Desolation or Liturgy, since Deafheaven seem to command a large amount of respect from the unwashed, bearded masses of hipsterdom, withoutlets such as Vice and Pitchfork Media placing their 2013 album Sunbather on year-end lists with hilarious vigour. Their music is some of the most cringiest stuff you’ve ever heard, their songs seem to drag on without any end in sight, and the band’s gimmick gets super old after the first 15 minutes. One of the songs even has a “sample” of one of the band members supposedly going to buy weed off a drug dealer, while the guitarist plays some moody chords in the background, you can’t make this shit up. Unless you’re trying to impress a bespectacled girl with a Burzum shirt at your local VFW hall, give these guys a pass and never look back.
LISTEN TO THIS: Asobi Seksu
Do you want some of the most uplifting goddamn shoegaze you will ever hear in your life? Are you the kind of basement dwelling geek who thinks that J-pop is actually a pretty sweet genre of music? Do you like qt azn grills singing in both English and Japanese while some guy plays the fuzziest and most insane shoegaze in the background? Then Asobi Seksu might just be your new favourite band. These guys were around for over a decade, and released some solid albums that often skirted the border between psychedelic rock and regular shoegaze. Asobi Seksu are bright and poppy without descending into insipid tweeness, but’re also heavy enough so that your friends won’t laugh at you when you admit to liking them in public. Lead singer, Yuki Chikudate has a very coy and sweet voice, that perfectly complements the bands cheerful and encouragingly melodic sound. The above song sounds like one of those track’s you’d see in an old anime opening that contains a bunch of “inspirational” shots of the sky and people running, interspersed with training montages. Not to mention Asobi Seksu broke up back in 2013, which means that within a couple of months it should be prime time for the band to become jocked by enterprising and Tumblr-users. Don’t be the last person on your feed to espouse the joyousness of Asobi Seksu, start jocking them today and earn the awe and inspiration of former-hardcore dorks everywhere.
Following on from 2013’s rather underwhelming Starbomb, the trio of Arin Hanson, Dan Avidan and Brian Wecht (referred to as Egoraptor, Danny Sexbang and Ninja Brian) have decided to up the ante a little bit on Player Select. First off, the production is much crisper and smooth sounding in comparison to the rather flat, Pro-Tools ridden production of the groups self-titled. Player Select is slightly more mature than the groups first album, which primarily consisted of dick jokes and finding ways to rhyme the word “fuck” with Nintendo characters. The profanity and overtly-sexual humor of the first album has been toned down a notch, with the constant barrage video game references now taking centre stage. In many ways, this helps the group become more accessible outside of the usual network of nerdcore, YouTube video-game humorists (ala Brentlafloss, Duane & Brando, etc). The eye-catching Final Fight-esque cover art is the perfect visual representation of Player Select, a sparkly and brightly coloured synthpop album that’s high on the jokes, and even higher on the production front.
I’ve stated this before, but I’m a huge fan of Dan Avidan’s ability to master the art of smooth hooks. His voice perfectly complement’s the mid-80’s-synthpop-meets-NES production. Arin Hanson’s rapping has improved slightly from the first album, but he tends to rely on overly repetitive punchlines and has a very samey flow. If you had to picture an awkward, white guy rapping like it was still 1988, he’d be your go-to man.. “Glass Joe’s Title Fight” recalls The Lonely Island’s “Rocky”, in how it details a fighter (Glass Joe from the NES game Punch-Out, voiced by Avidan) challenging Mr Sandman (Hanson), while seeing the two trade insult before Joe eventually gets the snot punched out of him by Sandman. “Inky’s Lament” is a hysterical Broadway send-up, in which the blue ghost from Pac-Man sings a Wicked-esque song about overcoming the yellow pellet eater, before eventually getting swallowed up by the man himself.
Much like Starbomb’s previous effort, the album doesn’t overstay its welcome, just clocking in under the 27 minute mark. The skits are thankfully kept to a minimum this time, with the few included at least providing a decent chuckle or two. “Toad Joins The Band” see’s Mario and Luigi (voiced by Hanson and Avidan respectively) starting a rock band and getting the screechy voiced Toad to be their frontman, only accepting him once they realise his head resembles a penis. One of the problems with the album though, is like the previous album, if you’re not familiar with the video games that the duo are riffing off, you’ll often be left scratching your head and wondering what the big deal is about. The juvenile humor can also be quite a turn-off for those who would consider themself above it (“Outro” rhymes ‘butt’ with ‘butt’ and has a fart sound effect in it, you do the math.)
The sense of humor employed by Starbomb recalls The Lonely Island at their most geeky, or Tenacious D at their least filthiest moments. “The New Pokérap” pokes fun at overabundance of new types of Pokémon in the new games, compared to the original game. You can tell that Avidan and Hanson clearly have a love for most of the source material in which they sing about. “Minecraft Is For Everyone” has a funny cameo from the games creator, Notch (in which Hanson utilises the punchline “Notch-yo song! OHHHHHH!”) “Smash!” is the album’s standout track, featuring vibrant synthesizers and a soaring power pop chorus from Avidan. It’s an extremely upbeat and feel-good track that isn’t short on the comedy, and can even appeal to people who have no clue what Super Smash Bros even is. Fellow YouTube personality Markiplier has a guest feature as the Super Smash Bros announcer, and Arin and Danny trade insults while masquerading as the various Nintendo characters.
Player Select is a good attempt at improving on the faults and missteps of Starbomb’s debut, and for the most part it succeeds at doing that. Much like a successive console generation, Player Select sounds bigger, badder and overall much more impressive than the bands first album. The group have taken onboard the complaints and issues related to the first album and improved the quality tenfold. It genuinely feels like Hanson, Avidan and Wecht put a large amount of effort into this album, rather than writing it off as a cheap cash-in after the runaway success of the first Starbomb album. If you love Game Grumps and love musical parodies even more, you’ll eat up Player Select like Pac-Man running through a maze. Hopefully Starbomb can keep the momentum going for their next release, these guys have a lot of untapped talent and it’d be great to see them utilise their full potential.
Bristol-based producer Hodge has been putting his own spin on house and techno tropes since 2011. His latest release You Better LieDown, his first for London’s Berceuse Heroique label, is one of the darkest and threatening sounding EP’s I’ve heard in a long time. You Better Lie Down is some genuinely demented, whacked-out industrial techno. The EP clanks and rattles around with such a furor, you wonder whether you’ll make it out alive by the end of it all. Hodge isn’t simply content to fill his tracks with bellowing industrial noise, he simply has to inject a several large wonky basslines into his musicjust to truly put the listeners on edge. His penchant for mixing noise with dance music puts him in line with fellow UK producers such as Paula Temple or Kowton, who similarly love to blend harsh soundscapes and danceable beats together in the most disturbing ways possible.
“You Better Lie Down” starts off with some pounding staccato drums, before unfolding into a noisy techno workout. Thick slabs of gut-wrenching bass intertwine with some demonic handclaps as Hodge makes the track swing with ease. “Exodus Blue” starts out with some relatively innocuous deep house percussion, until slabs of grinding industrial noise begin to fade in. Then before you know it, stuttering drum machines are mixing with snarling samples and horror movie synths as the track envelopes the listener in a terrifying haze of bewilderment. It’s the kind of track you could picture playing in a sleazy nightclub in some 80’s sci-fi movie. “Return To The East” ends the EP on a soft, brief, and rather ambient note, with a background sample that sounds eerily like the TARDIS sound effect. It almost feels like waking up from an nightmare and into the safe comfort of a pillow in terms of the emotions it makes you feel.
While it’s a bit derivative, and certainly not groundbreaking in any way, You Better Lie Down is a more than adequate release from an up and coming producer who knows his way around the techno rulebook. You Better Lie Down mixes paranoia with some hostile vibes and in doing so, creates a brutally stark industrial atmosphere. Here’s to more freaked out industrial soundscapes from Hodge in the near future.
DZ Deathrays are no strangers to the Australian music scene. The duo of Shane Parsons and Simon Ridley have been kicking about Brisbane’s various pubs and clubs since 2009. Describing their music as “thrash-pop”, the pair have been bandying their self-titled sound across the country for about half a decade. Imagine Death From Above 1979 if they owned too many Motörhead albums, and then turned up the sleaze factor a notch or two. Black Rat is the band’s second full-length album, coming off of 2012’s ARIA award winning Bloodstreams along with several support slots for acts such as the Foo Fighters and Unknown Mortal Orchestra. The album see’s the pair try and further their sound from the alcohol-fuelled punk furiosity of Bloodstreams into something more mature and well-defined.
“Black Rat” opens the album, with a distinctly evil sounding guitar line luring the listener in, and ending with an echoed “YEAYUH!” from Shane Parsons. Parsons vocals are high-pitched and snotty, perfectly suited to the group’s scuzzy garage-indebted “thrash pop” sound.”Gina Works At Hearts” is easily the standout, an immediate crushing rave-up of a track, focusing on the puzzling career choices of a girl working at ‘Hearts’. Unfortunately, Black Rat doesn’t sustain the tempo and high hopes brought upon by “Gina Works At Hearts”, and quickly descends into mediocrity. “Reflective Skull” dials back the tempo a bit for an old fashioned stomp-along, with the fuzzboxes buzzing throughout the track, as the duo.The production on Black Rat is rather bare-bones, and you wish the Deathrays had forked out for a better guitar tone and possibly a bass player while they’re at it.
“Fixations” begins with some bizarre synthesizer flourishes, before a disco beat drops in and you’re left scratching your head in bemusement. It sounds like a rejected LCD Soundsystem demo from 2004, and is easily one of the more cringeworthy tracks on the album. “Ocean Exploder” tries vainly to salvage some enjoyment and punk edge from the album, but it’s far too little too late. The album then ends on the limp note of “Night Slave”, which seemingly drops the tempo even further until you’re ready to hit the snooze button and pray to god the album will just end.
Black Rat is a huge step down from Bloodstreams and that comes from DZ Deathrays forgetting one crucial ingredient in their sound: “FUN”. After the explosion of trashy, house-party fodder that was Bloodstreams, it seems baffling how DZ Deathrays decided to become ‘serious artists’ and make a more ‘mature’ album, when they pretty much could’ve re-recorded Bloodstreams and we’d be all the better off for it. Sophmore slump affects a lot of bands, who unfortunately can’t deliver upon the hype of their debuts, and unfortunately DZ Deathrays have fallen victim to it on this particular effort. There’s a saying that goes “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, and never has that saying been more appropriate when it comes to Black Rat. Come on boys, you can do better than this.
Patrick's Music Reviews 