The Weekend Australian album reviews: Last Dinosaurs, Hilltop Hoods, March 2012
Two album reviews published in The Weekend Australian in March 2012.
Last Dinosaurs – In A Million Years
Does the world really need another guitar-pop band? Brisbane has proved fertile ground for the genre of late: the Grates, the John Steel Singers and Yves Klein Blue all achieved national notoriety in recent years mining this rich vein.
Funnily enough, all three are labelmates with newcomers Last Dinosaurs, suggesting that Dew Process has something of a local monopoly.
The young quartet’s debut LP practically radiates with neon intensity, so smooth, shiny and punchy is the production on these 11 tracks. Every frantic guitar strum and finicky hi-hat hit rings clean, and Sean Caskey’s vocal melodies are strong without becoming overbearing – though he does fall into the pop musician’s trap of writing instantly forgettable lyrics.
It’s either confidence or arrogance that convinces a band to open an album with its best track. I’m leaning toward the former, though Zoom is such a perfect example of guitar-pop done right that the rest of the album pales a little in comparison.
Earlier single Honolulu almost scales the same heights. The steel drums in Andy suit the track, but come off a little outdated in the wake of Sydney band the Holidays nailing the use of that instrument on its 2010 debut, Post Paradise. Spacey mid-album instrumental Satellites is the only unnecessary track here; its presence makes no sense amid an otherwise impressive, tight collection.
LABEL: Dew Process
RATING: 3 stars
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Hilltop Hoods – Drinking From The Sun
The best track on Hilltop Hoods’ sixth album, ‘Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom’, is built on the familiar lyrical trope of rap group pitting itself against its many competitors.
Yet here the narrative rings true: this Adelaide trio genuinely owns the Australian hip-hop throne, so when they rap “We came and we conquered” while a chant of “Hill-top! Hill-top!” repeats in the background, they’re being both arrogant and honest.
Their last release, 2009′s State of the Art, was the genre’s bestselling album yet. Fans and rivals alike look to these three to see where they’ll take the art form next; likely, more than a few hope they’ll falter and cede control to another crew.
To their disappointment, this offering is another jewel in the crown. The meaning of its title is made clear in the second of three interludes entitled ‘The Thirst’, when a voice explains “It’s a metaphor that we’re from an underground culture that’s risen up into the limelight; we’re down below, drinking from what’s coming above.”
Since the overwhelming success of the Hoods’ breakthrough 2003 release The Calling, Australian hip-hop has joined the mainstream. Where cultural cringe once confined the genre to the margins, the nation’s biggest music festivals are now just as likely to book hip-hop acts as they are pop and rock artists.
Drinking from the Sun represents the trio’s first real attempt at penetrating the North American market. It’s impossible to view this album through any other lens: all signs point to a concerted effort to impress newcomers.
At a touch over 41 minutes, it’s also their shortest album to date. While MCs Pressure and Suffa certainly can’t hide their distinctive accents, DJ Debris turns in perhaps his most impressive effort to date. The beats and instrumentation are uniformly world-class, and will give the trio its best shot yet at turning foreign ears.
They’ve also enlisted a pair of instantly recognisable American voices – Black Thought (of The Roots) and Chali 2na (Jurassic 5) – to lay down tidy, if unspectacular verses; another guest is Australian singer Sia Furler, who has written and sung for mega-sellers David Guetta and Flo Rida.
Lyrically, the two MCs discuss death (‘Lights Out’), break-ups (‘Now You’re Gone’), self-doubt (‘Good for Nothing’) and Suffa’s new-found sobriety (‘Shredding the Balloon’), while brass, strings, guitar and Debris’ beats fill out their now-signature sound.
LABEL: Golden Era
RATING: 4 stars
The Vine festival review: Soundwave Festival 2012, Brisbane
A festival review for The Vine. Excerpt below.
Soundwave Festival
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Saturday 25 February 2012After taking in last year’s festival, I wrote “The only question for Soundwave is: where to from here? Where do you go once you’ve booked [headliner] Iron Maiden? Metallica? AC/DC?”
Their answer was evidently ‘none of the above’. But the headliner is many hours away as we file into the Showgrounds just before the clocks strike 11am. The days preceding have seen heavy rain pelt Brisbane for extended periods, so it’s admirable that organisers have managed to greet us upon arrival with what appears to be a smoothly running festival. Ground staff are relying heavily on plastic matting to cover up the muddiest spots, and for the time being, the entire venue is easy to navigate with regular footwear while staying dry.
The sun shines overhead as I take up position before the metal stages, 4a and 4b, in anticipation of Finnish metal act Turisas. It seems they’re late; stagehands continue soundchecking, until twenty past, when they instead hoist the next band’s banner, The Black Dahlia Murder. Hundreds of disappointed people file out; nothing has been communicated to the audience as far as I can tell. (I later learn from a friend that they were moved to a midday slot at another stage.) A rare organisational hiccup, and not a good start to the day.
The sky breaks for the first time at 11.48am. I’m standing under a tree watching Chimaira, who sound OK. A little keyboard-heavy, which is odd for a metal band. Lots of blast beats and breakdown. There’s a heart-warming singalong to ‘Pure Hatred’ – namely, the chorus of “I hate everyone!” - while I apply my poncho for the first of many times today. The tent before stage 3 sees a sharp increase in visitors seeking shelter. Zebrahead are playing. Eh, pop-punk. The merch tent between the stages features the most impressive wall of shirts I’ve ever seen.
Out in the main arena, Stage 1 bears a banner that reads Pinkerton. Underneath, a band is playing Weezer’s ‘El Scorcho’. Turns out it’s Saves The Day halfway through playing that album in full. It’s weird, but their version is competent enough and I guess it’s much cheaper than booking Weezer. At stage 6a, CKY draw a couple thousand people before the rain returns at 12.50pm, scattering the casual observers and encouraging the dedicated throng up front to thrash harder. From a distance, it looks and sounds like they’ve got a different singer – his voice seems way off Deron Miller’s on-record delivery – but research afterwards suggests that Miller’s still in place. Just having a bad day, then. Their set is enjoyable enough, but most (all?) of these songs are 10+ years old. I referred to them as “a band seemingly near the end of their tether” in a review of their August 2010 tour, and I feel the same way today. Telling that the quartet don’t even bother with more recent or unreleased material; just the hits, thanks.
“So many good bands today, oh my god. Cannot believe that!” says the singer of French metal band Gojira from stage 4b. He’s right. It helps that his band kick arse. They’re one of the heaviest acts on the line-up, and one of the most anticipated by the metalheads: this is their first-ever Australian show, and they’ve drawn a big crowd to take in their seriously impressive and brutal sound. Sample song intro: “This song is about whales that fly… into outer space!” *crowd roars, horns raised* Apparently they only play for 20 minutes – four songs’ worth – which is disappointing, but in that short time they stand out as one of the day’s best acts. Friends have been recommending them to me for years, but today is my first exposure to Gojira. I’ll definitely be returning.
For the full review and many more photos, visit The Vine. Slipknot photo credit above: Justin Edwards. iPhone photo credit: Andrew McMillen.
The Weekend Australian album reviews: Yeo, The Peep Tempel, February 2012
Two album reviews published in The Weekend Australian in February 2012.
To those familiar with Melbourne-based Yeo Choong’s past releases, the opening bars of his third album, Home, will come as a shock.
Acoustic guitar, harmonica and his voice are high in the mix, rather than the synthesisers and electric instruments that characterised his debut album, 2006′s Trouble Being Yourself.
There, Choong walked the tightrope between pop and funk; to pin him as an Asian-Australian Justin Timberlake/Pharell hybrid was close to the mark.
On Home – available for download at http://snackswithyeo.bandcamp.com/ – the songs are near-nude in comparison, which forces the listener to focus on Choong’s vocal and songwriting abilities.
It’s a bold move, yet Choong clearly has the confidence in his own abilities. These are songs of gentle beauty. A banjo can be heard on ‘Selma Blair’ and ’10 & A Whiskey’, while third track ‘Meeting at Sea’ is the gentlest and most beautiful cut.
There are two rockers, ‘August 28, 1973′ and ‘Caves’, which break up the mellow instrumentation with electric guitars and forceful percussion. The gut instinct is to view Choong’s stylistic change in terms of maturity. The 13 tracks show he has lost none of his writing abilities, but one hopes that Choong hasn’t disposed of the synthesisers just yet, either.
LABEL: Independent
RATING: 3 ½ stars
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The Peep Tempel – The Peep Tempel
Given the considerable success of two-piece garage rock acts such the White Stripes and, more recently, the Black Keys, the formation of Melbourne duo the Peep Tempel in 2009 makes a lot of sense.
The addition of a bassist for their debut album certainly won’t hurt their chances, though, as what the three achieve here is incredible: they manage to make bare-bones rock and roll sound fresh and exciting.
The Peep Tempel is a dark, invigorating set of songs that demand to be played front to back, repeatedly. The style swings between breakneck rockers (‘Lance’, ‘Collusion’) and the slow, foreboding lurch of ‘Mission Floyd’ and ‘Do What You Want’. Each of the 10 songs imparts a sense of urgency in the listener.
It takes considerable skill to operate within such strict confines – the classic configuration of guitar, bass, drums and vocals – and still conjure up memorable musical and vocal hooks. There isn’t a single moment on The Peep Tempel (the name comes from a strip club in an Inspector Rex episode) that sounds played-out or predictable.
It’s hard to know how much of the narrative, which includes tales of unemployment and police brutality, is based on the band’s inner-city west Melbourne existence and how much is fiction. One thing is certain: this debut is very near to rock and roll perfection.
LABEL: Wing Sing Records
RATING: 4 ½ stars
Live footage of The Peep Tempel’s song ‘Down At The Peep Tempel‘ is embedded below.
The Vine story: “My Top 10 Musical Moments of 2011″, December 2011
A list of my ten favourite music-related memories and moments from 2011 for The Vine, reproduced below in its entirety.
My Top Ten Musical Moments of 2011
by Andrew McMillenAs we hurtle towards 2012 and the holiday season, TheVine has asked our critics to give us their Top 10 best music “things” from over the past year — whatever the hell they may be and in whatever haphazard fashion they so declare. Go.
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10. The Drones at The Hi-Fi, October 28 2011
I didn’t review this one. I went by myself. I don’t think I even spoke to anyone at this show. But over two intense hours, The Drones reinforced why they’re my favourite band. ‘I’m Here Now’, in particular, blew my mind. I think the bit where Gareth sings, “…and for the first time now, I’m looking right at you” is my favourite moment in any Drones song. Cathartic. It kinda goes without saying, but: never, ever pass up an opportunity to see The Drones live. Here’s footage from Sydney, the night after I saw them:
9. Les Savy Fav at Laneway Festival Brisbane
This was one of those “you had to be there” kind of shows, so I’m a little hesitant to include this on the list. But Christ, are this band incredible live! I haven’t seen one man own a room – or, in this case, a tin shed – like this before, and doubt I will again (until Les Savy Fav visit Brisbane again). Watch this video, and keep in mind that the rest of their 45 minute set was just like this:
I tried to describe it. Excerpt:
“Some bands simply have singers; guys with strong vocals that get the job done. Some have frontmen; guys who, in addition to singing, take it upon themselves to keep the crowd pumped. I’m reminded of that quote from Almost Famous, where the singer is like “You know what I do? I connect. I get people off. I look for the guy who isn’t getting off, and I make him get off”. This is entirely apt when discussing Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav. To say that his performance sets the Inner Sanctum alight is to understate the obvious. For the next 45 minutes, he owns the room. A chubby, bearded, near-bald man with a hell of a voice and (metaphorical) balls the size of grapefruits, has – within minutes of the band taking the stage – commandeered an orange vest from TheVine’s photographer, Justin Edwards and marched through the crowd; extra-long corded microphone in hand, singing in people’s faces, rubbing himself against poles, and drinking whatever people offer him.
At times, his performance veers toward the unbelievable. Like when he grabs some silver paint from his bag of props – the dude comes prepared with all manner of costumes and supplements – and rubs it all over himself, before dropping into the front row and leaving gigantic silver handprints on the faces of the entire front row. Or when, right near the end, he marches through the crowd, picks up an orange security barrier, and has the crowd hold him aloft while he stands and sings. All the while, his gun band thrash away at their idiosyncratic style of danceable noise-punk, with barely a glance toward the mesmeric insanity of what their singer is doing. Even as it happens, it feels like one of those performances that you’ll be telling people about for years to come. Harrington redefines the boundaries of what’s possible and acceptable onstage.”
8. Nova Scotia – Nova Scotia
This fine debut was released at the start of the year, but it’s still one of 2011’s best albums. They’re an indie rock band who live in Brisbane. They’ve hardly toured outside of this city so you’ve probably never heard of them, but believe me, they’re worthy of your attention. Try this track:
Excerpt from album review: “Final track ‘The World Is Not Enough’ is the best cut they’ve put to tape. Built around an instant-classic bassline and subdued guitar licks – which must have been tough for the three guitarists – the song does an abrupt about-face at the halfway mark and becomes another thing entirely. The inclusion of brass instruments late in the piece is the final inspired decision on an album full of them.”
Buy the album on their Bandcamp.
7. Warpaint [pictured above] visiting Australia twice: Laneway Festival and Splendour In The Grass
I would be even happier if this was an annual occurrence. A fantastic band.
Laneway review excerpt: “On the Car Park Stage, four women called Warpaint prove themselves as one of the day’s highlights, soon after shouldering instruments and counting in. I spend most of the set in awe of Stella Mozgawa, whose control and power behind the drumkit is a thing of rare beauty. While all four of the LA-based band are strong instrumentalists, Mozgawa is the band’s beating, metronomic heart. She’s not a particularly flashy player, but the way she dominates her kit with an insistent, rolling flurry of notes has to be seen to be believed. Warpaint’s sound is rarely brash; they often opt for creeping subtlety in their guitar lines and vocal delivery, though there are occasional moments of raised heartbeats, as in standout ‘Undertow’. The crowd increases as their set progresses; quite possibly the result of text messages sent across the festival instructing friends to come witness this shit-hot American rock band. Highly recommended.”
Splendour review excerpt: “Under the McLennan tent, Los Angeles quartet Warpaint are the closest thing to perfect we’ve heard so far today. They write intelligent dream pop and deliver it in an effortlessly smooth style. In Sydney-born Stella Mozgawa, they’ve got one of the best rock drummers alive. It’s clear that Warpaint live, breathe and love their music. They toured with the Laneway Festival only a few months ago, but they’ll always be welcome on these shores.”
6. Witch Hats – Pleasure Syndrome
An incredible second album from one of the best rock bands in Australia. I hope I don’t have to use the phrases ‘criminally underrated’ and ‘underground’ when describing Witch Hats for much longer. Here’s a taste: ‘Hear Martin’, the first single from an album which you can – and should – buy directly from the band. Here.
5. Eddie Vedder dedicating ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ to — the very recently deceased (at the time) — Mike Starr, at Vedder’s first show of his Australian tour, 10 March 2011
This broke me. An incredibly sad, beautiful, powerful, unforgettable moment. I had a strange feeling that something remarkable would happen at this show, which is why I brought my audio recorder along. I was right. Excerpt:
“Though Vedder’s performance – nearly two hours long, and featuring nearly two dozen songs – is thoroughly entertaining, there is a very dark moment embedded toward the end; curiously, right after ‘Betterman’, a track whose narrative shifts from depressed to optimistic across three minutes. Here’s the moment transcribed below in its entirety.
[Vedder finishes playing ‘Betterman’. Crowd cheers. A few moments later, a woman yells from the back of the room, “That was beautiful, Eddie!” Crowd cheers again.]
Vedder: Thank you very much. First night of a new tour – that’s exactly the kind of support you appreciate.
[Crowd laughs and cheers.]
Vedder: There was a, um… the first tour our group ever went on was with another band. It all seemed… I mean, it’s still new and exciting, but you have to work at ways to make it new and exciting. It was just a trip. It was just mind-blowing, starting out. I’d never actually been, like, in a band, and on tour. I’d played little shows here and there. But this was, like, the real thing. There was another band that we were with, and they had records out, and I was kind of looking at them to see how to behave. It was pretty intense. There was a guy in that group – the group was Alice In Chains, that we toured with.
[Crowd cheers.]
Vedder: The guy who played bass in that band, his name was Mike Starr. Our orbits changed a long, long time ago. We hadn’t seen him for years. He’d been going through a rough time for quite some time. Uh, yeah. I don’t know if you heard, but he’s no longer with us, as of yesterday. I’ve just been thinking about him. A lot. I don’t know what anybody could have done. It’s just really sad when life, and living life, and all that the planet and the people on it have to offer; and all that you can offer it, and them. It’s too bad when sobriety’s just not enough to keep you alive.
[Crowd applauds. Vedder begins playing ‘The Needle And The Damage Done’ by Neil Young. It's heartbreaking.]”
4. The Dandy Warhols at The Tivoli, May 31 2011
This is one of few shows I witnessed this year that I wish I could relive. Despite going to dozens of gigs and nearly every major festival that visited south-east Queensland in 2011, I find myself returning to this particular set. An unlikely Tuesday night highlight at the tail end of a national tour. Magic. Excerpt:
“What if I put it to you that The Dandy Warhols are one of the best American rock bands alive? The more I watch and listen tonight, the more plausible it seems. I didn’t walk in expecting to happen upon this realisation. It hit around halfway through, when the rest of the band left the stage—keyboardist Zia McCabe and drummer Brent ‘Fathead’ DeBoer for a toilet break, apparently—which left frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor to unveil his “secret weapon”: a solo version of ‘Every Day Should Be A Holiday’. I doubted whether he could pull it off. The Dandys tend to work through sheer volume, I figured, not cutesy, sentimental moments better suited to stadium schlock-rockers. I was way the fuck wrong. From the first downward, loosely-strummed chord, CT-T begins singing. Right near where I’m standing—up the back of the balcony— a bunch of middle-aged men begin bouncing around, arms around shoulders, singing along at the top of their lungs. Then, what seems like the entire crowd joins him to harmonise during the chorus. Its ascending melody is irresistible; contagious. Over a thousand voices follow his trajectory: “Anytiiiii-hiiii-IIIME / Baby let’s goooo-hoooo-HOOO / EverydAAAA-AAaay-aayyyyyy / Should be a holidaaaaaay”. Which sounds fucking stupid on paper, sure, but in the flesh, it’s hair-raising. He gets to the line in the second verse – “Super cool / The Dandys rule, okay?” – and…I can’t disagree. All of a sudden, I realise I’m watching one of my favourite bands.”
3. Daring to criticise Tool’s Big Day Out sideshow in Brisbane (see here)
Even though I’ve been a hardcore Tool fan for around half of my 23 years, when I saw their Brisbane show the day after the Gold Coast BDO in January, I had forgotten just how intense their fanbase is. So when I wrote a mostly positive live review that poked fun at a few elements of their oh-so-serious concert, I was surprised at the reaction from a handful of Tool fans who took umbrage at my decision to criticise the band. It’s worth clicking the above link and reading through all 31 comments to witness the sheer blind insanity that Tool invoke in certain people, but here’s a sample of awesome eloquence:
“SHUT THE FUCK, UP AND GO BACK TO YOUR UNEDUCATED,OVER CRITICAL CORNER, WITH YOUR CD COLLECTION THAT NO DOUBT, CONSISTS OF SHIT LIKE “SOMETHING FOR KATE” “OPERATOR PLAESE” “MILLI VANILLI” “MGMT” AND THE LIKES, AND refrain from slowing down the natural evolution of mankind!”
And from the same commenter, this time sent to me via TheVine’s personal message system:
“Put your pen down, and do the world a favour…. kill yourself!!! Kind regards. Pete.”
2. Gotye feat. Kimbra – ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’
I was in Odessa, Ukraine with my girlfriend when I saw this video for the first time, soon after Gotye tweeted its release in early July. Our hotel’s shonky internet connection meant that we had to pause halfway through to let the rest of it load, but once viewed in full, the song’s power was remarkable. Even then. Incredibly, it still is, even after hearing it hundreds of times. The intertwining male and female vocal harmonies toward the end of the song still give me goosebumps, every time. Watching the pair duet at Splendour 2011 was a revelation: the crowd response was extraordinary. I knew then and there that this track would win the Hottest 100 (and wrote as much for Mess+Noise). Simply a killer tune.
1. Tyler The Creator – ‘Yonkers’
32 million YouTube views and counting, this still stands up as my favourite track of the year. Released in February seemingly out of nowhere – I hadn’t heard of Odd Future before ‘Yonkers’ – this sparse, menacing narrative sent me and many others down the rabbit hole of discovering a prolific and diverse catalogue, one self-released by a group who only just left their teens. Coupled with an instant-classic music video and verse after verse of memorable lyrical hooks, ‘Yonkers’ is a modern hip-hop masterpiece. Though nothing on Tyler’s 2011 release Goblin came close to the quality of this first single, this young writer/producer and his crew of collaborators certainly made their mark this year.
The Australian book review: ‘Women Of Letters’, curated by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire, December 2011
A book review for The Australian, reproduced below in its entirety.
Love letters for weird families and those nights best forgotten
Women of Letters: Reviving the Lost Art of Correspondence
Curated by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire
Penguin, 412pp, $29.95
A fine cross-section of humanity – largely womankind – is on display in Women of Letters, a book born from a series of live letter reading and writing events “celebrating wine, women and words” in eastern capital cities in 2010.
The events were founded by writers Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire through their desire to “showcase brilliant female minds”, and also in the name of a good cause: all royalties from the sale of this book will go to Edgar’s Mission, an animal shelter in Victoria.
Comprising 69 authors, many of whom are well-known Australian musicians, writers and actresses, and 16 topics, Women of Letters contains many surprises, joys and profound learnings. Here are but a handful of moments that this reviewer felt most appealing:
Comedian Judith Lucy’s letter “to the night I’d rather forget” taught her “the invaluable lesson that it is never a good idea to combine alcohol with being a f . . kwit”. In a letter “to my first pin-up”, Adam Ant, former Triple J Magazine editor Jenny Valentish reflects on music journalism: “writing about tortured artists for a living, my keyboard is constantly awash with salty sentiment . . . I’m like a professional enabler for these people”. Actress Claudia Karvan and comedian Virginia Gay take a literal interpretation of “a love letter” by addressing theirs to the concept of love itself, with very different outcomes.
In a letter “to the moment it all fell apart”, musician Amanda Roff strikes on speculative fiction so absorbing that John Birmingham would give a nod of approval. “I remember lining up outside Melbourne Zoo, waiting for the army to sell the last of the meat,” she writes, taking the reader deep into her post-apocalyptic world.
This freedom of the open brief offered each writer the ability to choose how much of themselves to reveal. Many opt for brazen honesty. Singer Missy Higgins is particularly touching when writing “to my turning point”: she discusses her first experiences with depression. “I’m thankful to you, dear Turning Point, for . . . showing me that I’m not alone, that it’s OK to be sad.” In “to the letter I wish I’d written”, musician Georgia Fields asks, “Why am I still, at 27 years of age, so paralysingly terrified of what people think of me?” she writes. “Why can’t I just relax and be myself?”
The few blokes who appear in these pages generally opt for sentimentality too, especially when writing “to the woman who changed my life”.
Bob Ellis writes to his wife: “You are more than I deserved, and I less than you deserved, and this is too hard.” Rocker Tim Rogers is brutally honest in his self-assessment while writing to his ex-wife. “I wanted to thank you for what you’ve done to me. It wasn’t intended to be a love letter. But what changes someone more completely than love, and loss?”
Comedian and actor Eddie Perfect comes up with a great line while writing to his wife: “I don’t know what a family is, how to define it, other than as a collection of people who bind themselves together and get weirder and weirder until no one understands them.”
The highlights are so plentiful that I must mention a few more: Crikey editor Sophie Black writing “to my first boss” about her 1993 work experience at New Idea (“in one working week, at five dollars a day, I learnt enough to put me off journalism for the next decade”); Jennifer Byrne’s decision to read a heart-wrenching letter written in 1910 by a dying explorer on a fraught expedition to Antarctica; Noni Hazlehurst writing “to my ghosts”, which turn out to be the “gloriously impulsive, intuitive, emotional” voices in her head, and radio broadcaster Fee-B Squared writing “to my nemesis”, her bad back.
Women of Letters offers a joyous bounty of many voices, writing styles, laughs and regrets. Having read this book, I feel as though I know humans and their various conditions much better.
Andrew McMillen is a Brisbane-based freelance journalist.
This review was originally published in The Weekend Australian Review on December 31. For more on Women Of Letters, visit their website.
The Australian album review: The Roots – ‘undun’, December 2011
An album review for The Australian, reproduced below in its entirety.
As concept albums go, Philadelphia hip-hop band The Roots’ Undun isn’t too far removed from reality.
Dubbed an “existential retelling” of the life of a fictional American man named Redford Stephens, who lived between 1974 and 1999, Undun “seeks to illustrate the intersection of free will and prescribed destiny as it plays out ‘on the corner”‘.
Drugs, violence, desperation and regret play out in the narrative contained within these 14 tracks.
The tale begins at the end of Stephens’s life: in Sleep, MC Black Thought raps: “All that I am, all that I was, is history / The past unravelled, adding insult to this injury”. In Make My, the protagonist, still in a disoriented state, concludes: “If there’s a heaven, I can’t find the stairway”.
It’s a fascinating and original approach to urban storytelling that remains compelling throughout the album’s 39 minutes.
After 13 albums together, the Roots’ sound has become so distinguished and refined that it’s simply a joy to hear them at the height of their game. In effortlessly smooth track Kool On, each instrument – guitar, bass, drums, keys, vocals – can be clearly identified in the mix. Drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson can be relied on for at least one classic beat an album; on Undun, it’s The OtherSide.
The final four tracks – the “Redford Suite” – consist of a beautiful, elegiac orchestral arrangement. It’s the final surprise on an album that further solidifies the Roots as genre leaders.
LABEL: Universal
RATING: 4 stars
The Roots – undunThis review was originally published in The Weekend Australian Review on December 31. For more of The Roots, visit their website. The audio for ‘Make My‘ is embedded below.
The Australian album review: Witch Hats – ‘Pleasure Syndrome’, December 2011
An album review for The Australian, reproduced below in its entirety.
Witch Hats – Pleasure Syndrome
Though this Melbourne quartet has been associated with jagged, sneering punk rock on previous releases, a second LP, Pleasure Syndrome, finds Witch Hats in pursuit of something less dark, more beautiful.
The bass-heavy swagger and distorted guitars are still in place, but singer Kris Buscombe has clearly been honing his ear for pop songwriting in the three years since the band’s debut, Cellulite Soul.
This repositioning of the sound has worked: those put off by Buscombe’s wounded howl and his bandmates’ discordant squall in the past will now enjoy songs such as In the Mortuary, a quasi-acoustic ballad featuring pretty lead guitar phrasing and Buscombe’s sweetest voice yet. These 10 songs are more confident than anything the band has released before.
First single Hear Martin – built around a creepy keyboard line and written from the perspective of infamous gunman Martin Bryant – is the most accessible track here. It’s followed by Ashley, whose persistent bassline underscores the album’s most unsettling track. Buscombe revels in exploring the darker side of humanity, as best evidenced in album opener The Bounty, a gritty tale of frontiersmen scalping their peers for “fifty a head”.
Witch Hats has heart, skill and wide appeal, and Pleasure Syndrome gives 10 more reasons descriptors underrated and underground should be associated with this band no longer.
LABEL: Longtime Listener
RATING: 4 ½ stars
This review was originally published in The Weekend Australian Review on December 31. For more Witch Hats, visit their Bandcamp. The video for ‘Hear Martin‘ is embedded below.
The Australian album review: ‘Rewiggled: A Tribute To The Wiggles’, December 2011
An album review for The Australian, reproduced below in its entirety.
Rewiggled: A Tribute To The Wiggles
Once you get past the initial cognitive dissonance of listening to well-known Australian adult bands cover songs written by coloured skivvy-clad adults for children, there’s a lot to like about Rewiggled.
The concept is simple: 20 contemporary artists are given the chance to reinterpret the Wiggles’ songs, with consistently interesting results. Some bands sound right at home: Spiderbait’s Rock-a-Bye Your Bear is a cute, taut rock number, the Snowdroppers inject a bluesy swagger into Wags the Dog and Adalita’s Get Ready to Wiggle is full of hazy, down-strummed chords, true to character.
Megan Washington and her band bring a surf-rock feel to The Monkey Dance, while Architecture in Helsinki’s Wiggly Party becomes a neon-tinged, hyperactive dance number (which, admittedly, is one of few tracks here that grates on repeated listens).
The Living End thrashes out Hot Potato with such vigour one suddenly wishes they’d do a whole album of Wiggles covers. While most tracks are upbeat, there are some calmer moments: Sarah Blasko’s I Love It When It Rains is an earnest, piano-and-voice affair, Angie Hart’s midtempo Our Boat is Rocking on the Sea is drenched in reverb, and under Clare Bowditch’s guidance, Georgia’s Song becomes elegiac.
The musicianship is so solid — and the songs so damn catchy — that Rewiggled could find its way on to the stereo without kids’ prompting.
LABEL: ABC Music
RATING: 3-1/2 stars
This review was originally published in The Weekend Australian Review on December 24.
Rolling Stone album review: Eddy Current Suppression Ring – ‘So Many Things’, December 2011
A short album review, published in the December 2011 issue of Rolling Stone.
Eddy Current Suppression Ring 
So Many Things (Fuse)
Garage rockers collect odds and sods in one place
A collection of this Melbourne band’s out-of-print singles and other rarities, So Many Things is a fine starting point for those who haven’t yet been charmed by Eddy Current’s addictive garage punk rock. Most of the 22 tracks here are so rare they’ll be new to most ears: gritty slow-burner “Demon’s Demands” might be the best ECSR track you’ve never heard; the title track is a hilarious rant about a failed relationship, while “Hey Mum” is a touching tribute to the singer’s mother set against characteristically trebley guitar tones. When they’re on, ECSR are among the best rock bands in Australia.
Andrew McMillen
Key tracks: “Demon’s Demands” [embedded below], “Precious Rose”, “You Let Me Be Honest With You”
The Weekend Australian book review: Marieke Hardy – ‘You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Dead’, September 2011
A book review for The Weekend Australian’s Review. Excerpt below.
You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Dead
By Marieke Hardy
Allen & Unwin, 304pp, $29.99Life in modern Australia as a hedonistic young woman is vividly portrayed in Marieke Hardy’s You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Dead.
Hardy, 35, charts her life so far via a series of short stories built around particular themes or events – a friend being diagnosed with breast cancer, her adolescent love of the Fitzroy Football Club, the shame of holidaying with her parents as a single adult – which allow for digressions to help assemble a fuller picture.
We learn Hardy, the granddaughter of author Frank Hardy, is an only child raised by a pair of “theatre folk” whose open attitude toward nudity rubbed off on their daughter. Hardy writes gleefully of informing programming staff at radio station Triple J during a job interview that there are naked photographs of her “all over the internet”. She was married once, in her late 20s, to a man with a young child from a previous relationship. This relationship is mentioned on page 101, then glossed over until their acrimonious break-up is detailed near the end of the book.
In between Hardy, a Melbourne-based broadcaster and scriptwriter for shows such as Packed to the Rafters and most recently the ABC series Laid, depicts what seems like her entire romantic history.
From scampering around naked men in the Fitzroy changerooms as a wide-eyed, sexless child to attending her first swingers’ night, her stories leave little on the cutting room floor when it comes to sex. At the swingers’ night, after describing an excruciating series of pre-coitus conversations where both author and participants coyly refuse to reveal much about themselves, Hardy is confronted with the beginnings of an orgy:
In the corner, just out of view, somebody was already making a spectacular amount of noise on the round bed. We edged our way towards it, stepping over the anarchy of flesh. “I do believe,” I said in hushed, reverent tones to my boyfriend when our eyes adjusted, “that nice lady in the trench coat over there is being fisted.”
Your reaction to that particular image will determine whether or not Hardy’s eye for graphic detail is for you. It’s clear that little shocks the author, and this self-aware, detached manner of approaching her role as narrator heightens the appeal of these stories.
Curiously, Hardy allows some of the people she writes about to respond, with revealing results. At the end of a chapter where Hardy and her then-boyfriend engage the services of a male prostitute, her ex writes, via email: “My only criticism, as a writer, would be, if you’re going to share then don’t hold back. Because it seems you want to share Marieke the caricature, when the soul of the Marieke that I knew, in dark, hard times, well, she was a real person. And a lovely one at that.”
For the full review, visit The Australian’s website. For more on the book, visit Allen & Unwin.
