Grinspoon still heavy, still hungry on quality-filled album No.8
After a 12-year break from the studio, this Lismore-born rock band has gone above and beyond the anomaly of a ‘return’ album by instead serving up stone-cold classics.
Album reviews for week of August 23 2024:
ALTERNATIVE ROCK
Whatever, Whatever
Grinspoon
Universal Music
The warning signs were there for this record. With no new music for 12 years and a slew of nostalgic album-anniversary tours under its belt, there was a chance – perhaps an expectation – that the return of Grinspoon would be another example of 1990s-era rockers squeezing back into skinny jeans for an attempted revival to their heyday, resulting in a middling, heavily diluted release. Happily, though, older fans will sigh in relief upon hearing Phil Jamieson roaring “We’re together and drunk as f..k” over the old-school punk thrash of the opening number (ILYSM). Behold: the definition of music to the ears of the masses. The Lismore-born quartet hasn’t returned to the well here; they never left it in the first place. Early salvos Unknown Pretenders and Nasty carry all the speed, heaviness and — crucially — poppiness of its now iconic discography. Never Say Never and Live Fast, Die Young further show the band has lost none of the edge that pricked the ears of Triple J listeners nearly 30 years ago. Not only is Grinspoon still heavy, it’s still hungry. Despite the welcome heaviness, though, the album highlight arrives on 4,5 & 7, a brilliant slice of slow-burning indie rock that sounds like the song the Smashing Pumpkins have tried and failed to deliver for the best part of three decades.
When you haven’t written an album as a unit for over a decade, though, not everything will sound like a triumph. Despite boasting another killer chorus, This Love is hampered by a slightly awkward verse and riff that feels a bit thrown together, whilst the number of interludes unnecessarily inflates the track listing. The lyrics aren’t going to set the world on fire, either. Jamieson’s teacher once told him to … well … “live fast and die young”, while Blood on the Snow, although standing out as the album’s (musical) dark horse – featuring a guitar hero moment from Pat Davern – falls a bit flat on its edgy message. These are minor qualms. Whatever, Whatever is the first album in years from a Homebake festival alumni that feels both contemporary and organic. Across 15 tracks and 36 minutes, Grinspoon has gone above and beyond the anomaly of a “return” album by serving up stone-cold classics. Upon reflection, the album’s quality should come as no surprise. Between drinks, Grinspoon hasn’t rested on its laurels, with members continuing to tour solo projects, perform in tribute shows and other bands, and even illustrate children’s books. All this is to say that album No. 8 doesn’t sound like a band restarting a crusty, tired engine – rather, they’re putting their collective foot to the floor with the confidence that comes from driving a well-oiled machine. The saying rings true: (the) winners are (the) Grinners.
Alasdair Belling
INDIE ROCK
Call a Doctor
Girl and Girl
Virgin/Sub Pop
Spilling over with nervous urgency, Girl and Girl’s debut album has singer/guitarist Kai James venting about anxiety, both personal and global. A linked pair of bookends almost tip Call a Doctor into concept album territory, while giving handy context to James’ striking vocal quiver. Formed on the Gold Coast with James’ aunt, Melissa, on drums, Girl and Girl certainly know how to spin jangly gold out of persistent struggles with mental health. Hello and Mother are strong singles, while the more ambitious fourth track, Maple Jean and the Anthropocene, involves James asking the world what it wants from him before diving into a ripe singalong. But the band’s approach suffers from a lack of variety, with later songs sounding like slighter versions of earlier ones. And though the record — which spans 11 songs across 43 minutes — is intentionally told from the perspective of someone lost in their own head, such lyrical self-absorption only adds to the nagging sense of monotony. That means these songs are more appealing on an individual basis than when stacked all in a row.
Doug Wallen
INDIE FOLK
As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again
The Decemberists
Yabb/Thirty Tigers
Led by Colin Meloy’s reedy voice and ornate wordplay, The Decemberists have always rambled down their own path. The Oregon ensemble widens that lane on its ninth studio album, a double-LP affair full of hearty orchestration and cheeky sidesteps. The vast majority of it goes down a treat, starting with the pitch-perfect single, Burial Ground, and the New Orleans-style brass romp, Oh No! From there, Meloy’s old-school storytelling flair serves him well across tales of ghostly brides, bygone diplomats, foreboding forests and wobbly patriotism. Born from the songwriter/author’s solo sessions with regular producer Tucker Martine, these songs are roundly satisfying. Less so is the band’s big swing at the record’s end: the 19-minute slow burn Joan in the Garden. The veteran indie act has delved into suite-like prog rock in the past, but this is a half-baked experiment that’s extended for far too long before reaching a surprisingly punky finish. While it’s more likely to be skipped than savoured, it’s the lone blemish on this otherwise impressive showing.
Doug Wallen
CLASSICAL/HEAVY METAL
Plays Metallica Vol. II
Apocalyptica
Throwdown Entertainment
It’s hard not to feel slightly cynical about this. Metallica is in the middle of a groundbreaking world tour that has the quartet playing a collection of two-night-stand, in-the-round shows in football stadiums. It’s genuinely innovative and there’s a lot of love around for the Bay Area thrashers, despite diminishing musical returns of late. It feels, then, that this Finnish trio is jumping on the bandwagon, coupled with the fact that their 1996 debut record was also made up of Metallica covers, making things seem a bit desperate. As for the arrangements themselves, while their first collection of covers felt innovative with cello quartet arrangements, here the magic is sullied somewhat by the addition of traditional instrumentation, including guitars and drums; a bizarrely sloppy rendition of Blackened featuring former Slayer skinsman Dave Lombardo is perhaps the album’s biggest head-scratcher. There are some redeeming moments: St Anger is given a wonderfully aggressive outro that the actual band should steal, and the arrangement of Unforgiven II is beautiful. But then you hear the laughable spoken word by James Hetfield over One and you can’t help but feel like this is the Metallica your parents said they had at home.
Alasdair Belling
JAZZ
10 – Michelle Nicolle Live At The JazzLab
Michelle Nicolle
ABC Jazz
Following her outstanding 2023 album The Bach Project, vocalist Michelle Nicolle has issued a live performance recorded at Jazzlab also in 2023, again with her brilliant trio: Geoff Hughes (guitar), Ronny Ferella (drums) and Tom Lee (double bass). This beautiful album is simply a breathtaking achievement, with Nicolle covering all aspects of jazz singing with compelling authority. The four performers establish a unique collective identity here, built on constraint and discipline. No-one loses sight of the quartet’s collective purpose, even when the music is roaring. Whether this is intuitive or designed, or the product of experience, matters little, but the finished product is a document for the ages. Nicolle has written nine compositions totalling 51 minutes, including two with her sister Tamara Nicolle. Some are primarily vehicles for Michelle’s awesome ability as a scat singer. Others, such as Secret Looks, New Life and One Beer, are revelatory. Their sophisticated lyrics, full of wisdom, understatement and ambiguity, will resonate with listeners who have thought deeply about their intimate relationships, and pondered on the secret wishes which complicate our thoughts.
Eric Myers
Album reviews for week of August 16 2024:
POP/ROCK
Sunday Sadness
Amy Shark
Sony
Amy Shark has earned multiple ARIAs, had several multi-platinum hits and most recently took a Logie as a judge on Australian Idol. The Gold Coast native also spent around a decade toiling in musical obscurity. Maybe it’s because of that stark divide that Shark – a stage name she adopted a few years before her 2016 breakthrough Adore – can write the kind of unflinching lyrics that cut immediately through the background noise of life. Whatever the reason, sustained success has in no way dulled her songwriting, which boasts a sharply honed emotional clarity while feeling as spontaneous as a breathless voice memo. Taking its title from the soul-searching common to that day of the week, Shark’s third album grafts those raw thoughts and feelings on to polished hooks that drive them home with universal appeal. One might hum along at first without taking in her words, but the ambush is bound to happen. A strong case in point is when Beautiful Eyes vividly revisits Shark at age 17, nursing both a contrary streak and an unkind boyfriend. Such powerful material is followed straightaway by Gone, reframing Shark’s snide pop/punk spirit against thumping synth-pop while packing this rapid-fire opening: “Now it’s gone / Everything we built together, gone / All the memories we made are gone.”
Can I Shower At Yours then applies similar vocal acceleration to a tale of romantic euphoria rather than betrayal. Both in how she sings and how she wields narrative shorthand, you can tell that Shark learned a lot from her years of playing other people’s songs to indifferent audiences. Not everything here hits quite as hard: Two Friends documents the transition from platonic to passionate with guitar-bolstered brightness, while the piano ballad Babe conjures a familiar sense of sweep. But Shark will always surprise us. She completes her trifecta of collaborating with every member of Blink-182 by enlisting Tom Delonge for My Only Friend, again making wounded lyrics go down all too easy. The acoustic closer Our Time Together is another song about forging core memories without knowing it at the time. “I want to thank you for what you showed me / Hot summer night swims and New Found Glory,” she sings, nodding to the influential pop/punk band. It might seem like a throwaway reference, but there’s no such thing for Shark. Every detail radiates intense personal meaning, providing a direct portal into the past.
Doug Wallen
INDIE ROCK/SHOEGAZE
Frog in Boiling Water
DIIV
Fantasy Records
Having reached underground critical acclaim with its 2019 effort Deceiver, New York shoegaze darlings DIIV opt for a ‘more of the same approach’ on the quartet’s fourth LP. It makes sense, too; having finally found its sound on the last release, new cuts like the title track, Brown Paper Bag and the wailing opener Amber sound like a band far surer of itself than in years gone by. There’s a welcome self-edit here too: at only 10 tracks across 43 minutes, this is the tightest, most efficient display of its career thus far. Fans of the dreamier work found last decade won’t find as much to love here. For those who want a little more from frontman Zachary Cole-Smith than Beach Fossils-lite, the likes of Somber the Drums and closing indie dirge Fender On the Freeway show that the DIIV net of influence is gradually expanding. The band has made a record that sounds quintessential, and by having such a distinguishable sonic palette, they’re head-and-shoulders above many of their goth-guitar peers. If The Cure’s Robert Smith ever moved to Seattle in his youth, there’s a chance he’d have made an album that sounds like this.
Alasdair Belling
ALTERNATIVE / METAL
Secrets Of The Future
Reliqa
Greyscale Records
One of Australia’s most exciting new names in the heavy/alternative scene, Sydney’s Reliqa impresses on its debut album. Powered by a fusion of sonic influences that range from pop-laced alternative through to melodic metalcore and prog, a sense of unbridled excitement comes threaded through its 12 tracks. Vocalist Monique Pym commands from the jump; the emotional weight behind her lyrics and vocal delivery makes tracks like Dying Light and Cave impossible not to become enveloped by. The album plays with themes of darkness and emotional ambiguity brilliantly; Killstar (The Cold World) and Sariah stand out as two prime examples of Reliqa’s sonic world-building talent – the former feels like an expansive metal victory lap while the latter highlights the charisma and pure musicality within the band. Having spent recent years developing a formidable live reputation while supporting acts such as Babymetal and Spiritbox, Reliqa has harnessed that live energy and brought it effortlessly on to a defining album.
Sosefina Fuamoli
CLASSICAL GUITAR
Amistad
Grigoryan Brothers
Decca
The level of musicianship of brothers Slava and Leonard Grigoryan can only be described as spellbinding in their third album, Amistad. The title, literally ‘friendship’ in Spanish, sums up pretty well what it’s all about: namely, 13 pieces by a dozen composer friends whom the two musicians have known over the years. Among them are Ralph Towner, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Leo Brouwer and Dominic Miller — all big names in the guitar world. Their pieces express a warmth and affection across a panoply of styles from Latin to blues, and the playing throughout is truly extraordinary. The title track, Luke Howard’s Amistad, stands out particularly with its plangent melody over slow strummed chords. It is intoxicatingly lovely, as is Al Slavik’s jazzy Cruising. Slava and Leonard allow themselves a wide, improvisatory latitude with melody in these and other tracks. Across 65 minutes, their timing and touch are just magic. Electronic phaser effects in Phil Dearing’s Branch Lines add an intriguing experimental touch, while the penultimate track — Nigel Westlake’s Songs From the Forest — is interpreted with deep introspection across seven minutes, opening up this piece’s secret interior as never before.
Graham Strahle
ELECTRONIC
Stop Thinking Start Feeling
Cosmo’s Midnight
Sony Music Australia
Sydney twins Cosmo and Patrick Liney are just as capable producing upbeat electronic anthems as they are flexing into hip-hop or mastering moodier fare like 2018’s Confidence featuring Woodes. Guests again shine on the duo’s third album, with the likes of Spill Tab and Kucka contributing to an emotive, uplifting, free-flowing and funky follow-up to 2020’s Yesteryear. While tunes like Bang My Line featuring Tkay Maidza and the joyous closer Can’t Do Without My Baby have been around for a few years, they remain evergreen when nestled among new productions that explore connection, isolation and celebration. Opener Telephone builds atop an urgent vocal and synth before popping out with expansive bass and chunky percussion; Fantasy features London duo Franc Moody, and strikes a Jungle-type vibe with its falsetto vocal, plucky guitar and strings. Two Kinds is a beautiful standout anchored by crisp drums and guitar that progresses to a Breakbot-style funk and string chorus that delivers all the feels. The duo’s perfectionist bent and tendency to overthink isn’t unique, but by loosening up and focusing on the emotive and transportive nature of music, Cosmo’s Midnight has engaged new creative muscle and delivered its best album to date.
Tim McNamara
Album reviews for week of August 9 2024:
ROCK
The Deluge
Fanning Dempsey National Park
Dew Process/Universal
At the turn of the century, Powderfinger and Something For Kate – then two of Australia’s brightest alternative rock bands – undertook a national tour together. In the ensuing 25 years, not only did both bands go on to multi-platinum success, but both Bernard Fanning and Paul Dempsey, the respective frontmen of each, additionally parlayed into fruitful (and still ongoing) solo careers. As esteemed veterans of the scene, not to mention longtime festival staples and instant theatre-fillers these days, neither man currently has anything to prove from a career standpoint – they’ve done just about everything one can do in the Australian music industry, and then some. It’s to both men’s credit, then, that they’ve spent the past year under cover of darkness working on, to borrow a phrase from Monty Python, something completely different. Enter: The Deluge, the debut effort from the pair’s freshly-minted new band, Fanning Dempsey National Park. The 10-track effort was created with producer Craig Silvey in hopes of establishing something distinctly reflective of each musician’s tastes and creative vision, rather than merely a logical extension of their solo efforts. Certainly, there are plenty of musical elements that suggest outer-reach sonic exploration from the pair.
Lead single Disconnect, for one, is given a proper E-Street shuffle with a sizzling sax line the late Clarence Clemons would approve of. Both the opening title track and album highlight Eyes Wide Open borrow from the pair’s love of Krautrock and new wave, with orbiting synth arpeggios that serve as a recurring stylistic motif of the album. There’s also the key factor of the vocal interplay between the two, with their rich and distinctive vocals impressively interweaving – both with duetting back-and-forths and the unified front of perfect harmony. More than anything else, it’s immediately apparent that Fanning and Dempsey have had the time of their lives cultivating and creating their own National Park. Like any nature trail, however, it can grow a little tiresome walking through the same old familiar garden path – the ‘80s rock homages are fun at first, for example, but by the sixth or seventh you’re hoping for a little more than recreating Gen X nostalgia. Moreover, Fanning’s now 20-year career away from rock music and in the throes of agreeable adult contemporary can’t help but occasionally add a streak of beige to the neon primary colours FDNP are going for musically. For whatever flaws The Deluge may have, though, it has something a lot of albums made by veteran artists don’t have: a sense of passion and motivation behind its creation, rather than a looming sense of contractual obligation.
David James Young
CLASSICAL
Migrating Bird
Veronique Serret
Migrating Bird Recordings
There’s an eerie beauty and alchemy about this new release by Veronique Serret, a much admired and respected artist in the firmament of Australian music. As a singer and violinist, her world embraces extremes from Vivaldi to punk, and her creativity recalls the early Laurie Anderson, the US performer who was also once a violinist. The eight tracks on this album, totalling about 40 minutes, are essays or reflections on her multifaceted and itinerant life as a Mauritius-born musician who, like her partner — the acclaimed didgeridoo player and composer William Barton — moves effortlessly between concert hall and country pub. Perhaps purposefully so, as there are few words of explanation on the cover of this release. In their absence, the listener is left to dive into a personalised sound world, sometimes too dense and busy to comprehend immediately, but ultimately rewarded by repeated listenings. All the same, coming up for air, my ears longed for some kind of clarity, perhaps in duets between the voices and instruments of Serret and Barton, a most inspired coupling. Perhaps next time.
Vincent Plush
JAZZ
Sleep Cycle
Claire Cross
Art As Catharsis
The inspiration for this strange album is highly original. The medical test electroencephalogram (EEG) measures the electrical activity of the brain; Melburnian Claire Cross examined what shows up in these tests during sleep and, in five compositions, has attempted to express those results in musical terms. She found that brain wave activity suggested certain note choices, dynamics, different tempos and so on. The result is an album of so-called ambient music, a genre which emphasises tone and texture rather than structure and rhythm, and may encourage a peaceful, meditative state. Cross (electric bass and effects) is joined by Reuben Lewis (trumpet and effects), Merinda Dias-Jayasinha (voice and effects), and Kyrie Anderson (drums and bells). Has this been successful? In my view, to a limited extent only, although there are beautiful moments. A brave experiment, this is essentially an album of sound effects on the brink of music. Perhaps it is jazz, as much of it is apparently improvised, but I cannot say I found it transportive.
Eric Myers
FOLK BLUES
All About the Bones
Chris Smither
Signature Sounds
A half-century on from his debut release and only a handful of months away from reaching octogenarianism, distinguished American troubadour Chris Smither conjures shadows with the sound and imagery of his 20th album. Unpretentiously poetic and philosophical reflections on the meaning of life and death flow from his gravelly, world-weary baritone, propelled by the Mississippi Delta-influenced guitar fingerpicking and foot percussion that’s his stock-in-trade, and Zak Trojano’s sturdy drumming. Harmony back-up vocals from BettySoo, Chris Cheek’s jazzy saxophone breaks and producer David Goodrich’s electric guitar fills feature on various tracks, but Smither sounds best on songs that are comparatively unadorned and accentuate his haunting acoustic guitar figures, specifically in three of his standout new originals: Still Believe in You (“Where the moonlight falls on some never-to-be-seen horizon”), In The Bardo and If Not for the Devil. The set’s two cover songs, Eliza Gilkyson’s Calm Before the Storm and Tom Petty’s Time to Move On, are well chosen. This might not be Smither’s best album of the 20 issued to date, but it’s still pretty good.
Tony Hillier
ROCK
Spooky Action From A Distance
Jack The Crow
Independent
Melbourne-based collective Jack The Crow is now an international operation, thanks to the globe-shrinking power of the internet. The fourth album from songwriting duo Peter Mountjoy and Chris Wilson (not the late bluesman), in company with producer/engineer Ben Hense, is as eclectic as its list of musical contributors, who hail from all points of the compass, bearing out the elliptical title. Lyricist Mountjoy, who also sings and plays guitar/keys, and Wilson (keys) hired these foreign freelancers remotely via an app called Fiverr. Despite such a random method of assembly, the results are surprisingly cohesive. JTC’s sonic reference points extend from the early 1970s (Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, fusion and prog) through the likes of ‘80s Australian band Matt Finish to more recent fare, such as Steven Wilson and The National, while Mountjoy’s largely impressionistic lyrical subjects range from the insidiousness of gambling (All in the Timing) to an imagined afterlife (Pearly Gates). Standout guests include Egyptian cellist Abdelrahman El Hariry on By the Time the Sun Goes Down, Argentinian sitarist Lino Gonzalez (Tell Me What You See), and chameleonic Brazilian guitarist/drummer Fabinho Pereira (jazz-funk opener Another Lonely Day, A New Skin and Beside Myself).
Phil Stafford
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