The Immortal Lee County Killers II - Love Is A Charm Of Powerful Trouble

The dirty roots two-piece's second album is the most poorly-recorded disc you'll hear this year. But it's also the most awesome.

Lee County, Alabama, USA. Home to a smooth-talking drummer who looks like he's taking a brief break from carjacking and a lanky, snap-kicking guitarist who plays a horned axe that looks like it's got the body of a redback spider. Put 'em together and you've got The Immortal Lee County Killers II. Love Is A Charm Of Powerful Trouble is band's second album (discounting an odds-and-sods collection), and it's also home to the second iteration of the band, too: original drummer Doug "the Boss" Sherrard upped-sticks after the band's debut disc. The gap - a big one, given the two-man setup of ILCK - was filled by guitarist Chetley "El Cheetah" Yz's former bandmate J.R.R. Token... and what they've created is telepathic blues of the best type: fucked-up and angry.

Oh, and drunk.

This is not to suggest, of course, that the ILCK2 are anything but upstanding citizens of the finest stripe. But there's a malt liquor sound to this outing: from mysterious vocal lines that should come with a reference card to woozy slide that fairly drips off the guitar, intemperance and firewater are dripping off this project. And it sounds good: 'sterile' is not a word that applies to this recording.

Despite the duo's raggedy-arsed approach to the subject matter, there's never anything but reverence for the blues heard here. Over half of the songs on Love Is A Charm Of Powerful Trouble are covers. This is unsurprising, given the band's dedication - admittedly filtered through a grimy washcloth of punk ethic - to keepin' it real. There's pure Delta swamp goodness here. A spattering of cover work - including grit-blues luminaries Willie Dixon and R.L. Burnside - sits alongside dirt thick originals like Shitcanned Again and Truth Through Sound. The constant foot tapping that marks countless backwoods recordings is still present - though you may have to struggle through El Cheetah's twin-amp onslaught - one for treble, one for bass - to hear it. But it's there, pulsing like the heartbeat of the genre, transformed by two skinny blokes with plenty of oomph.

The performances on the disc are uniformly strong, with a nihilistic grimace permanently affixed. "BULLSHIT'S KILLIN' ME BY DEGREES!" wails El Cheetah before opener Robert Johnson comes to its dropped-drink end. There's amp-crackling tension in the air, broken only by occasional samples - Howlin' Wolf talking about the blues being evil, and a receding train, blowing into the distance -
or by occasional acoustic excursions, such as What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?, a regretful lament. Also quiet - but deadly - is Weak Brain, Narrow Mind, which sounds positively possessed.

Goin' Down South is one of the band's strongest songs encapsulating everything that this band does well. Drunken geekboy vocals contend with a hypnotic slide and a dreamy feel. It's 3AM juju, gunning straight for you, all cymbal shimmers and slide burr. But of all the tunes on disc, it's the duo's reinvention of the classic Don't Nothing Hurt Me Like My Back And Side that really goes for the jugular. You can hear speaker cones rupturing as slide licks buzzsaw through the air. Tasty, overdriven harmonica solos communicate pain only hinted at in the wailed vocals. Token's octopus-armed predilection for playing the whole of the drumkit - rimshots ahoy! - underscores the whole affair, which sounds like it's cranked-up and spoiling for a fight or a fuck. It's white-hot, and the best reason for picking up this collection of bruised songs.

The only quibble with this album is the production. Don't expect high fidelity - this rough-and-ready slab sounds like it was recorded using a highly sophisticated combination of the cheapest kids' tape-recorders available. USE HEADPHONES! exhort the liner notes. And they're not wrong - if blown-speakers, destroyed microphones and inaudible or incomprehensible lyrics are likely to annoy you, then this is not the album for you.

But that's part of its appeal. If you believe in the touched-by-the-devil nature of the blues, in the brimstone boogie power of the shaman player, then you'll get into this album. If you don't, you won't - it's that simple.

While The Immortal Lee County Killers II don't come across on disc as well as they do live, their second album is still a bracing take on the blues that's a rawer experience than much of the soulless wank that's foisted upon the public in the name of the blues today. No latter-day Eric Clapton turgidity for these two. 11 songs. 35 minutes. No filler. No bullshit. With none of the Jon Spencer/Jack White posing that graces other supposedly rootsy recordings, this is an album that's got the sound of the crossroads all over it. At a recent show, El Cheetah said that he'd sold his soul, but hadn't scored much in the way of financial remuneration for it. I beg to differ: if Love Is A Charm Of Powerful Trouble is what he got out of the reaving, Satan's way out of pocket.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

The Hoodoo Gurus, Asteroid B-612, The Booby Traps @ Metro Theatre, 19/03/04

A hometown gig for one of Australia's most legendary bands... and there wasn't even a mention of rugby during their set!

A Friday night gig that starts just after 8pm? Impossible! Normally, a gig's listed time � to which you can add half an hour before the first support ambles into the limelight � is notoriously unreliable. But those turning up to the Hoodoo Gurus' launch for Mach Schau were in for a surprise; not only were the doors open at the stated time, but bands were playing. Is punctuality coming back to rock... or was this a reflection of how many punters had to get home before 1am to pay the babysitter? Admittedly, conversations about what year gig-goers' kids will be in this year aren't what you normally hear when breasting the bar at a rock show, but this was the much-anticipated hometown return � festivals notwithstanding � of one of Australia's longest-running bunch of pop axegrinders, so a slightly different crowd was probably inevitable.

The Booby Traps, a five-piece who are perhaps best described as Mod escapees from a Russ Meyer flick, had the unenviable task of warming up the crowd at the Metro this evening... what little crowd there was, to begin with. It must be difficult to perform while the headliners' logo is emblazoned across the whole stage, but the band gave it their all. With miniskirted stage-presence to burn and an unidentifiably retro-yet-modern sound � making it easy to see why they'd landed a support slot � they could've been playing to a full house, rather than a slowly-accumulating contingent of hardcore Hoodoo Gurus fans. Where the band has previously come across more like a real-life version of Josie and the Pussycats, tonight saw them pulling the flick-knives out of the calf-high boots to really carve it up. Songs about prehistoric lovin', cheaters and wrongdoing set to a deliciously big-beat � their drummer hits harder than most! � filled out the band's unfortunately brief slot, and won genuine interest from the show�s earlybirds, and deservedly so.

If you had a ticket to this gig and decided to nix the supports, then you truly missed out. Better apologise next time you see the band... and maybe they won�t slice you for disrespect.

Maybe.

Given the sharp-dressed start of the night, Asteroid B-612 were somewhat lacking in the sartorial stakes � not one of 'em was sporting a miniskirt or tie � but that really didn't matter as they plugged in and cranked up. Through a seven-song set, the band � with very little audience interaction � played some of the loudest, dirtiest rock that some of the people in the room this evening had ever seen, judging by the looks of sheer terror that were seen on a couple of faces. Calling the Asteroids loud is probably a bit of an understatement, actually: when guitarist Johnny Casino first begins his thunderous playing, the effect is felt in the hairline as well as the gut. It can't be a good thing for a band to play so loudly that it seems your follicles could be expiring in fright, but it sure feels good, and by the end of the set it seems that the rapidly-swelling crowd � particularly the guy who's rocking the show in a Status Quo tour shirt � are thirsty for rock, and lots of it. With a vocalist that leaves the stage before the set's over and a guitarist that leaves his hollow-body stringless and moaning against his amp, Asteroid B-612 have fuck-you attitude with the sheer rock know-how to back it up: there's some young turks who could learn a lot from �em.

The reason for the gig's early start would become clear through the course of the night. There were no plans for these headliners to throw in a desultory fifty-minute set followed by a two song encore. No way. When Dave Faulkner and crew took to the stage � to the strains of the Dad's Army theme - they weren�t going to leave it for a good two hours, and certainly not before every punter in the place was satisfied.

Launch nights are always a bit
of a mixed bag, especially with artists with a couple of albums to their names. Will they only play their new stuff? Will the most recent disc get only a passing nod in favour for those tried-and-true (or, shop-worn, as is sometimes more appropriate) tunes that'll have lighters or fists in the air? How will the balance work out? Thankfully, the Hoodoo Gurus put on a show that had fans both new and old � though let's face it: is there anyone out there who doesn�t wish these guys well? � pleased and dancing. Ripping into Tojo (Never Made It To Darwin) with undiminished fire, it was obvious that the band were in fine form and ready for a good time. Time-changes, amazing leads and a wild-eyed sense of speed were present from the outset � and the four men on stage made it appear absolutely effortless, playing together as naturally as ever a band has performed.

Through the night, Faulkner stepped back from the mic a couple of times as the crowd sang along, every word clear and close, and traded looks with his bandmates � a look of wonder. For a band that's had such success, it's reassuring to see that they're still touched by the response they get. Scenesters who play through a hipper-than-thou fug should take notice: playing doesn't have to be a dour experience. This bunch of blokes, fronted by a man who now looks like your slightly geeky uncle, are more successful than most, but still are enamoured of the joy of the live show, of seeing people getting down to their tunes. And that's why this band works: it's good, clean fun, devoid of pretentious trucker-caps and mascara-lined faux-drama. Sometimes, all you need are good songs.

While a couple of new songs slipped through the net � good, crunchy rockers, one labelled a new "punishment song", a Faulkner term for a tune to play when an audience becomes too relaxed � it was clear that the night would become a greatest hits evening. And with tunes like these, why shouldn�t it? After all, this band have produced some of the best - if not the best - singles that've had airplay here or anywhere else. Brad Shepherd � rockstar resplendent in tight white trousers and frilled shirt (while his bandmates trod a more casual path) � wailed on harmonica during a sterling Poison Pen, smiling through a stuffed-verse go-around. Drums punched through the air, heralding Like Wow � Wipeout's beachy go-go dynamics as the crowd went absolutely, incontrovertibly apeshit. And from then on, it was all gold: Come Anytime, Bittersweet, 1000 Miles Away, Miss Freelove '69. Pete Townshend-style windmills and guitar solos played from the knees (and the heart) prevailed through the long-awaited What's My Scene? � with no rugby lyrics appended. And it'd be a heartless bastard who'd deny that tonight's version of My Girl � with perfect division of the audience between the two vocal parts in the song's end � was one of the greatest, tear-jerking encore tunes heard in recent memory.

Reviewing the Hoodoo Gurus is difficult because in some ways the regular rules no longer apply. They're not only a band now � they're icons, representative of some of the best bits of Australian guitar rock over the past couple of decades. The songs they play are the ones that � like them or not � you know all the words to, because you're a fan or because they�ve been around so much that they've seeped in by cultural osmosis. They're part of who we are; an amalgam of surfie cheese, b-grade movie and BBQ. Days on the beach and nights being bummed. Rave-up and rock out. And seeing it played live is strange, because it's like coming home. Rarely at a gig do you feel like you belong, or that everything that's happening makes complete sense. Everyone knows the words and everyone's smiling. If you believe in an afterlife, it's tempting to imagine that it'd be something like this: a night where feelings of wistfulness, pride and the desire to rock the fuck out combine � and where everyone's singing the words with a smile on their face.

Guys, That�s My Team is forgiven. You can come anytime.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

Spiritualized @ The Metro, 14/03/2004

It's a beautiful noise, as Neil Diamond once said. You'd think - given this evening's brilliantly ramshackle performance - that he was talking about Spiritualized.

The performance - no supports, just two hours of headliner - was always going to be something special; one of only two performances on this tour of Australia. Before entering the auditorium, punters were warned about the evening's light show. There'd be strobes, and plenty of 'em. Seizure possibilities be damned; the Metro was soon full with a strange mixture of punters - indie aficionados, backpackers, those who'd hoped for their own little slice of musical pharma.

Currently in a seven-piece formation - the same hot combo that hammered out Amazing Grace - Spiritualized took the stage and kicked into Electricity, the first of many of the band's rockier tunes (Cheapster, This Little Life Of Mine) to get an airing this evening. And the playing was superlative. But, as long-time fans will know, there's some things at a Spiritualized gig that're done differently than anywhere else. Any form of interaction with the crowd is pretty much eschewed by main man, Jason Pierce. He delivered tonight's show from a seat side-of-stage, spending most of the time sipping tea, or playing with his eyes closed. His reserve was echoed in his sidemen; while wah-driven, fuzz-clouded tunes erupted out of the speakers, the band managing to look almost entirely disinterested as they whipped up a sonic storm. No foot-on-foldback posing, no proclaiming Sydney the most rockin' town in the world - just solid, well-conducted (in the true sense of the word - the breakdown section of This Little Life Of Mine was spacey yet razor-sharp) playing that hit loud and hit hard. And all the while, the guys - a somewhat concerned-looking Thighpaulsandra excepted - made it look as if there was nothing special about what they were doing. Indeed, if there's a performance ethic within Spiritualized, it's to let the music do its thing, and try not to distract.

This isn't to say there wasn't palpable excitement about the show. While their albums can be enjoyed with that sort of peaceable, just-before-comedown glow, the live experience is a sharper version; music that engages on a more straight-to-spine way. There's more of an edge, but also a feeling of camaraderie; the belief that things really will be OK - that these mammoth songs of failure and questing for more really do bring some form of redemption with them. Can rock save your life? Two hours of these guys will have you believing it.

Key to this, of course, is the fragile nature of the vocals. Like a cracked egg straining to preserve what's precious inside, his faltering, battered-by-the-world lines are the soul of the songs; the human tenderness inside the grandiose, tidal beginnings of songs like Hold On. It's the glue, the hero lamenting his own fucked-up nature that gives the whole shebang some cohesion. And this evening, it was treated pretty shabbily - the mix pretty much drowned out the vocals, which was frustrating in the extreme. True, Pierce doesn't really follow the David Lee Roth school of rawk gymnastics, but given the importance of vocals in any mix, it was surprising (and a little insulting) to hear how washed out of the sound he was. True, the crowd knew all the words and were belting them out, but when you're confronted by three guitars, two keyboards, a bass and drums - all playing exceptionally loud - all the fanboys in the world can't compete. A shame, as it was pretty much the show's only downfall.

Through the set, Pierce and co mined the past; most notably exploring his Spacemen 3 history with a fantastic version of old favourite Walking With Jesus, the link with the present made clear as it morphed into All Of My Tears. Though the set drew heavily from Amazing Grace, tunes from Lazer Guided Melodies were sprinkled through the set, delighting the hardcore. Let It Come Down's Anything More provided a tease for the audience; as the song came to its end, Pierce threw in a couple of lines from Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. "All I want in life's a little bit of love/To take the pain away", he sang - and across the room, ears pricked up, hoping for the rest of the tune. Alas, it wasn't to be - but there was still plenty of melancholic finery to come, including a show-stopping version of The Ballad Of Richie Lee, a song of tired pain that finally broke into free-time solo wails that cut right through the crowd. Beautiful.

At the front of the stage, two backpack-style blokes were capturing a soporific slice of home - from the sounds of it, one of many who'd come to the Metro for a slice of Rugby's finest. "Come on, Spiritualized, yeh bastards!" they called, all fist-in-air glee and beery enthusiasm. With nary a look from Pierce, the band lumbered on. It wouldn't have mattered what they'd played; for an evening, these guys were home, watching something that made them, wreathed in smiles, feel oddly secure, mates with everyone; a fuzzy sense of certainty. It's hard to say how the band communicates this, but that's how a Spiritualized gig, it seems, feels.

Closing with Smile, one of the oldest tracks played, the band played up the acid freakout tag and went hell-for-leather, shredding strings and blinding with light and sound. There'd been no Cop Shoot Cop or Stop Your Crying, say, but punters were left feeling far from dissatisfied. The band departed, and a silver-sneakered Pierce walked across the stage last, his half-smile and gestures of humility towards the audience the only interaction he'd made all night. There'd been no words - outside lyrics - exchanged with the audience through the length of the band's set. And as the house lights flicked up and the fuck-off-home music began flowing through the room while ringing-ear punters glided their ways to the exit, it seemed fitting.

A beautiful noise, after all, needs no footnotes.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

The Fiery Furnaces - Gallowsbird's Bark

Take The Langley Schools Project and give them a sack full of sherbet and a honky-tonk piano - that's how you make The Fiery Furnaces.

Eleanor and Matt Friedberger are (occasionally-added members notwithstanding) The Fiery Furnaces, another brother-sister band duo that - from the sounds of their wide-ranging debut - have been listening to records together and aping their own versions for many, many years. There's no hiding of influences: ravey soul guitar solos, vaudeville piano portraits and various electronic shadings - as well as cowbells - pepper the disc. The songs - most of which are sub-three-minute gems of pop invention - sit next to each other with no discernable order, sharing only their progenitors' twisted tastes in common. And it's great.

Overall, Eleanor's vocals give The Fiery Furnaces the feeling of being Pulp's precocious little sister. There's literate observation at work here (to the point of the political on We Got The Plague, a Dylan-styled rave-up) in a big way. The concept of faraway places, travel and almost child-like adventure is central to the album. Being attacked by sharks (Asthma Attack), journeys to Cadiz, croquet, trials in the Hague, plantains purchasing... all this and more is mentioned through the disc, evoking thoughts of postcards and travelogues, or dog-eared tomes with strange feathers as bookmarks.

The musical landscape is equally strange, though it all seems to come from pretty standard instruments. Meaty, bouncy bass and garage guitar - though sometimes Mick Ronson-era Bowie leads make an appearance - are slathered everywhere. The toothy tones of a piano are found across the disc too, played with amazing abandon - all bash and missed-key enthusiasm. Inca Rag/Name Game is the most obvious example of this: it sounds almost like something that'd be created during a round of Theatresports, except for the fabulous moment at 1:50 where a meaty, Lennon/McCartney-styled riff comes home to roost.

A good reference point for the band would be The Flaming Lips, particularly on the glorious Up In The North, where a melange of squishy keyboards and what sounds like muffled wah over simple melodies and Beatles bass sits alongside lyrics about learning songs and servant girls in Turku and benches in Anjou. But then that definition's disproved by the presence of Leaky Tunnel, with its constant, driving drumbeats, Kraftwerk-thick tones and icy paranoiac tales of pick-ups in London played out over acid-rock guitar freakouts. Put your finger on one definition and The Fiery Furnaces have already hopscotched on, poking their tongues out at you.

The single Don't Dance Her Down is probably indicative of the sort of perverse dorkgroove the band do best. References to gambling in Spain and England are shoehorned into a song that contains one of the funkiest basslines on the album, with requisite scratchy guitar. There's nothing particularly earthshattering about the lyrics, but then it does turn into what sounds like incidental music from Star Trek at the tune's halfway point for a while, before returning to the groove - so that's forgivable. It's suspiciously Britpop, but like the rest of the album, it's delightfully free of cynicism.

Gallowsbird's Bark is, at heart, an odd but honest record. It's dense, and too fucked-up in a krautrock-meets-hoedown way to be truly considered a rock with artistic pretensions, like Xiu Xiu, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs or The Strokes, say. If anything, this harks back to the earliest days of Elton John: back when he was purely a hell-for-leather barrelhouse pianist and not an Epic Songwriter For Kids' Flicks. There's a similar feeling of rooting through a range of influences to produce something that's not particularly easy to place within any genre. Enthusiastic, crazy-eyed and sporting sodden sweatbands: that's pretty much where this band camps out, borrowing from assorted styles and clumping them together like musical Play-Doh to create something that's endearing yet tattered. Gallowsbird's Bark is that old-season coat that's missing most of its buttons but somehow still manages to look good when you whack it on.

To be honest, this isn't an album that you'll ever truly understand. It's too deeply-rooted in sibling dialectics to make actual sense to anyone outside the Friedberger family tree. But that's what makes listening to it fun - the idea of decipherment. Maps, animals and flowers adorn the cover; the sense of whimsy and cultural pickpocketing make spinning the disc a sort of musical version of Guess Who? - and one that deepens on each successive listen. This is the sound of a pair of space cadets riffling through the ephemera of their lives, as scored by [honky-tonk piano great] Winifred Atwell. The Fiery Furnaces are like that cousin that always had a bit too much red cordial during family get-togethers and insisted on singing chart-toppers to uncles too polite or drunk to protest - so enthusiastic that listeners couldn't help but pay attention, no matter what.

And if there's anything that'll give po-faced glum-rock a kick in the arse, it's that. Disposable, fabulous pop goodness that's unafraid to be weird. It's about time: cheer the hell up and have some cordial with Eleanor and Matt.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

P.W. Long - Remembered

The former Mule frontman returns after a five-or-so year hiatus: and it sounds like someone done him wrong.

P.W. Long, ex Mule mainman and axe-mangler of Reelfoot renown has just returned from about five years of exile - self-imposed - from music. And if Remembered is anything to go by, it sounds like the intervening years have been a real bitch. Opener She's Gone provides a perfect thermometer of the man's temperament: "She ain't leavin'... she's gone" is intoned over crushing chords and a sense of ramshackle grandeur. The gutbucket blues are back in town.

Long's six-string work across the album is exemplary. Better's guitar lines swell and recede over the tale of opportunities missed, with fret noise and delicious vocal-doubling giving the tune a confessional feel. Elsewhere, surly overdriven pub-stage power-chords or bottom-heavy riffing provide a fuck-off attitude - It Just Doesn't Seem To Matter Now and If Not When, Now being the best examples. It's powerful, working man blues that speaks directly to your arse - stuff that, while formulaic, it's hard to resist nodding your head to.

Unfortunately, Long's lyricism proves problematic. Cliche is the order of the day here, with some pretty simplistic rhyme schemes ("grass/pass", at one point) peppered through the disc. Navelgazing and hackneyed phrase dominate many of the songs, which is a shame, as his vocals are a thing of rough beauty. But somehow, the triteness found in some aspects of the disc don't detract; it's so over-the-top in some places that it's akin to a bluesy, countrified version of The Darkness - you can't help but grin at the dedication here. It's curious, but cliche, in the right setting, can work wonders.

The album's production that gives it repeat-play value.
Remember the best-mixed live act you've ever seen? That's what this sounds like: live, but without the holes in the soundfield that can be problematic for some. The drums are the centre of the aural field, behind Long's vocals, adding a brutal, muscular touch that never overpowers - merely underscores. There's very little feeling of trickery - the disc's musically-honest in the way that great band discs are; it sounds like the band's together in your lounge-room.

Remembered was recorded in Texas, and it sounds like it. It's probably a safe bet to say there was a case of bourbon concealed somewhere in the production process. Hot, sodden air blows over the disc: the sweaty, laid-back-but-pissed-off nature of tunes like Memphis Kids - which develops into a double-lead monster of honest-to-God rock by its end - pervades for the most part. Organs add steamy spiritualism in some quarters, though the boozy swagger pervades - lifted only briefly by Darla Oates' fabulous vocal additions to I Can't Tell The Things I Done, and the drunken-hoedown freneticism of Diamondbacks, a reeling piece of fret exuberance. Sure, it's mostly dark on here - and smoke-filled - but there's enough to stop the album from ever sounding too cloying.

This is a disc to listen to while alternately picking on a guitar and drinking down liquor, clad in a dishevelled flanno-and-wifebeater combination. Remembered sounds vaguely like something you've heard before, smells like bourbon and lasts for 35 minutes: long enough to give you the blues but not long enough to bum you the hell out. Nothing on it will really rock your world, but none of it sucks. And sometimes, that's all you need.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

Forte - In A New Light

Byron Bay: Forte's first album ensures that the area's known for stoner rock - not just for stoners.

"Is this Kyuss?"
"Kyuss have a new album out?"
What volume of The Desert Sessions is this?"

These are all questions that could be asked upon hearing the first full-lengther from Byron Bay's Forte, In A New Light. It'd be selling the band's work a bit short to label them as Kyuss wannabes, but the unmistakeable detuned sludgetone that late superstoner group championed is certainly front-and-centre on this disc, with the slightly more buzzsawed definition of early-period Soundgarden thrown in for tautness. Forte vocalist George Christie does, indeed, bear similarities to John Garcia at times. And with songs such as Her Motives Right or Monsta Trucka sounding like they've escaped from Kyuss' ...And The Circus Leaves Town, it's pretty easy to pin the five-piece to the floor with an easy dismissal.

But there's also something uniquely Australian about the group, too, and that's what saves them from being written off as naught but slavish imitators. It's hard to explain: tracks like Santa Rosa are strangely reminiscent of some '90s Oz indie, while Rising Sun Of Venus - a contender for best track honours - sounds like Crank-era Hoodoo Gurus kicking out a crunchy, wonderfully-melodied tune with a sneer... and a phaser. Forte's grip on melody is never allowed to loosen, no matter how swamp-deep the tone of individual songs might become. Yes, they're heavily indebted to other groups - what band isn't? - but their blend of psychedelica and detuned power-chording is always held in check with an iron fist and a perceived
grin.

Perhaps it's the enthusiasm that comes through the tunes here that saves the band. There's doom-laden overtones, talk of death and loneliness, but there's also a hard-to-pinpoint feeling of hope laid down here. For all its subject matter, this is an album to do double devil's horn fingers to while air-guitaring about the room - and that's what saves it from falling into the pit of THC-induced glumness that entraps others. That, and the fact that this is an incredibly tight group. The years on the road have paid off here.

Forte's played with Fu Manchu and lived. That's proof enough that their particular stripe of cranked lo-slung riffery is far enough away from the output of the gods of the genre to ensure they weren't subjected to a round of post-gig plagiarism arse-kicking. And that should be enough for the naysayers. Yep, it sounds like a thousand other stoner bands out there. Yep, the songs can occasionally fit the grinding-groove-by-numbers formula. But it's enjoyable, and while sometimes derivative, In A New Light never lapses into workmanlike playing - something that is a distinct danger when you're working in a genre where ability to play and write can be cut off at the knees by a couple of quick green breaks.

In A New Light is not the second coming of Kyuss, though they can do a pretty damn good impression of them. It's not blindingly original, but it is a highly listenable album, and one that sounds just as good as a lot of the stoner canon that's available at horrendous import prices. There's potential here. And hell, home-grown's always a winner, isn't it?

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

Einstürzende Neubauten - Perpetuum Mobile

The kings of klang return with a fan-funded album.

Before any Kollaps-owning noiseniks get their knickers in a twist, it's worth mentioning something about Perpetuum Mobile. There are no jackhammers on this record. Deal with it.

Of course, this doesn't mean Einstürzende Neubauten's arsenal of wondrous noisemakers is depleted – according to the album's liner notes, car tyres, radios, olive canisters, dried leaves, a survival blanket, a swinging microphone and a turntable-powered wind instrument known as an air cake were used. And that's in addition to the band's more regular instruments: richly e-bowed guitars, amplified springs, Pythagorean tube bells and an air compressor, amongst others. Long-time exponents of the theory that any process is a good one – providing you get the noise you're after – the band's albums have always featured a range of outré instruments. But the ones massed here are perhaps the most effective grouping of tools they've used in recent years.

Perpetuum Mobile is the first album the collective's put together with input from neubauten.org, their fan club and financial benefactors, and the first since leader Blixa Bargeld chucked in his role as Nick Cave's sideman to concentrate on his own career as an artistic polymath. The change in focus seems to have revitalised the group; their peregrinations into the world of spaciousness – something that's been growing since Ende Neu was released – are now more precise. There's fewer throwaway tunes in this stripped-back Einstürzende Neubauten. And they’re the better for it.

The album's songs feature, musically, a little less of the overt shaking-fists-towards-heaven feel that characterised their predecessors – but the feeling that something's not quite right persists. The title track – a glorious motorik piece that goes from mellow to metal-shredding over the course of fourteen minutes – features vocal lines that you'd perhaps expect to hear from a character in Fight Club, or perhaps from Peter Gabriel in his paranoid I Have The Touch phase. Selbstportrait Mit Kater, a tribute to the mental processes of the hangover, is perhaps the most immediate song on the album. It's here that punctuations of thudding bass and percussion work their magic over a spat tagline, before ghostly strings seep in towards the tune's end, rubbing a paranoid, gliding finish over a wonderfully spiky tune. The threat of anger's unmistakeably there – but it's reined in behind staccato percussion and the literal rattle of chains as Bargeld ends, musing about life on other planets. Boy-meets-girl this ain’t.

Feelings of loss, of being overwhelmed, and of regret are present through the length of this album, which explores the themes through dark, liquid instrumentation. The triptych of Ein Seltener Vogel, Ozean Und Brandung and Paradiesseits combines ideas of extinction and peaceful waiting with the sounds of a roaring ocean and howling wind – none of which is sampled. It's a study in bleakness – admittedly livened by bits of skewed muzak – that's engrossing because it communicates honest, plain emotion – something which is often missing in experimental music. There's lighter-sounding moments, sure: Youme & Meyou is one of the most lovely-sounding songs the band's ever done and Der Weg Ins Freie has the dancefloor written all over it – but there's always a feeling of weightiness, of concern present. Pretentious? Sure. But when it works, who cares?

As with Silence Is Sexy, Perpetuum Mobile's packaging is sumptuous. It's a bigger digipack than most albums, but the contents are more than worth the years of annoyance over dented corners that it’ll bring. The booklet – handily translating lyrics for us non-German speakers – continues the band's trend of showing more of their instruments and graphical scores. It's interesting, as it further consolidates what the music on disc states loudly: this is a band that's stripping back the layers of their own mystique to interact with their audience more and get a little more personal, more direct. There's not as many shards of wailing crunch as there were previously. The creators of this album are leaving themselves open. The back cover –perhaps a nod to Spiritualized's Amazing Grace? – shows a bare arm across a pale space, armed merely with an air-compressor's gun. The violent, confrontational musical nature of the band’s past has been transformed into something else; something naked yet still sinuous, still exploratory. Bargeld’s sinister narrations are now clad in velvet, not steel – but that makes them no less enthralling.

Perpetuum Mobile, while it doesn't possess the necessary assault to keep someone seeking an hour of non-stop Merzbow-style ear-bleeding, is a strong, mature album. More than ever, there's a sense of cohesion, a sense of journey. This band's best is yet to come – and for the first time, they're offering you the chance to buy a ticket to travel with them. And if this album’s any kind of sign of what’s to come, it'll be quite a ride.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

Hard-Ons - Very Exciting!

Second verse, same as the first: it's the Hard-Ons! Dave Grohl loves 'em, and so should you.

Some things never change. There are those stalwarts of life - the quality of beer at university pubs, the Australian Taxation Office, the seemingly-endless career of Bert Newton - that will be with us no matter what life throws their way. And so it is with Hard-Ons. They started relentlessly touting (and touring!) their uniquely dorky-older-brother-rocking-out-in-front-of-his-amp-style punkpop in 1982 and haven't drawn breath since.

And what's the skinny on the latest platter from the band that brought Dickcheese to horrified parents across the globe? Have they embraced throat-singing, found the Lord or become a Pro-Tooled pop act?

Not on your life. Second verse, same as the first.

Sure, you might've moved on from the last time you were listening to these guys - but they truly haven't. Occasionally - the humour can drag on a bit - this lack of wild reinvention can irk. But for the most part, it's no bad thing; it means that the band's been able to hone their sound, albeit without the company of Keish, who's departed the band, leaving the able Regurgitator/Front End Loader-ite Pete Kostic to warm the stool. Very Exciting! is unbelieveably tight, and could well be the best work the trio's ever laid down, though it doesn't fall far from anything else they've ever done, songwriting-wise. Whether it matches their live ferocity's still open to debate - but it's the closest they've ever come thus far. And this time, it sounds fresh - mistakes and all - without sounding like the band had been recorded from within someone's sock drawer. It's rough and ready, but is enthusiastic rather than obnoxious. Maybe there has been a bit of growth here.

Then again, Hard-Ons aren't particularly fazed either way if you don't like what they
do: the phrase "Fuck the self-righteous punk police!" shows up a couple of times through the album's length. A thrown gauntlet? Probably. But with a tongue pushed so hard into cheek, it's difficult to tell.

Very Exciting! manages to contain all the hallmarks of the band's work - dodgy humour (Pimple Boy and (Every Time I Hear) Techno (I Pray For Death), whimsical stoner-pop (Caravan Man, Radio) and Big Rock Moments (pretty much everything else on the disc). And somehow - admittedly, like most of their other albums - it all manages to flow pretty cohesively. Why? Because it sounds just like a mixtape you'd make someone of a really cool band - these guys sound like they come from a world where punkers, popsters and metalheads cohabit in a The Secret Life Of Us arrangement. It all just works because of the lack of pretense that's found here: this is the product of a bunch of guys who like to hang out and make music that's at once loud, smart-arse and - by dint of the band's age! - accomplished. The different styles given an airing on the album come together to make something that's always more than by-the-numbers exercises in genre, but something that's also hopelessly, lovably stupid. You just know this is an album that'll kill your brain-cells - perhaps it's the increase in disturbing devil-style vocals on a number of tracks? - but it's hard to put it down nonetheless.

There's nothing better than a bit of brainless escapism; and Very Exciting! is the finest rabbit-hole away from the working week that you can get. Flaws and all, it's worth picking up for those air-guitar days. Hell, buy the album and then go buy the guys a beer as well. Chances are, they'll probably be at a pub near you sometime soon.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.