Scene Report: Australia(?!) May 2007
By: Alex Lee Thomson
Like all countries (except France?), Australia has rock music too. And although most of it has yet to cross over here, there are a few bands that are worth a hearty shout. Put your idle dreams of Jet and Savage Garden aside, wander around the outback, and you might come across the following artists... possibly running after kangaroos, eating shrimp straight off the ba'by, or whatever other racially stereotypical things budding musicians may do down-under.
Firstly, Eskimo Joe, a throwback band to the best sounds of retro 80s America crossed with dazzlingly modern pop soberness similar to Starsailor, wonderfully similar in fact, but with drum beats that mingle away like underground UK electro. There're fantastically not-catchy yet fill their songs with hooks like the Bon Jovi that never was, especially on the BRMC echoing 'Black Fingernails', a track which seems to have come straight out of 1992s glory hymns for the future. Their stop-start structure blurs the drive of their music but manages to wind home the odd surprise chorus moment that excites the sensations of their sound into a rather fun, highly guilty, moment of toe-taped sun-kissed amusement.
Not too far away lies the melodious Californian-esque bangs of Grinspoon, some New South Wales-ers who pile Green Day-like guitars over Chilli Peppers bass lines and riffs. It's a sound akin to pure fun. Like Buckcherry, it's all one massive cap-doff to a Pixies yesteryear yet it wrangles some tunefully fresh pips from it, enough to give their 2 albums some playtime anyway. You can hear their obvious Nirvana influence but with a more contemporary lift administer a sound closer to Weezer than anything from the Seattle, late 80s era. Yeah, you could call it dated, and worry that around some point in 1998 Australian music went into a digression and stopped suitably evolving in the same way our scene towards the beginning of this millennium did - but nonetheless, Grinspoon do it all in a reassuringly enjoyable way.
The more temperate side of Oz comes from The Whitlams and Youth Group. The Whitlams loftily soft approach to music is a well-wielded stab at a genre that so many Western artists are trying but failing to do, but in this case, these boys have actually pulled off. It's Simon and Garfunkel crossing the road with Ryan Adams, sharing ideas while a bite of club-jazz piano fluttering staggers off some poppy vocal harmonies, stripped back but wrapping around you with the warmth of a duvet. It's the vocals that will have you crawling back to this band, but the late 60s folk ballad-ette scrawlings will only add more of an urge to your fascination.
If you're talking about great Australian vocals though you have to look at Youth Group, a band that's become known across here for the heart-wrenched penning of 'Forever Young', a song still very much in the top of this Rockfeedbackers favourite songs of all time. Used on The OC soundtrack, it was a song that came from nowhere and blew the world apart with a swerve of overly stunning vocals and a riff that pre-dates similar feats coming out of the UK scene, all draped by the thumping drum of an Arcade Fire like march. It's understated, beautiful and ceaselessly striking, bathed in the flickering lights of every sad moment in your life. It's inspirational while being melancholic, everlasting and pouring. It's the soundtrack to teenage life and the splendour of angst while giving this band a light that will never go out. Other tracks, such as 'Shadowland', are just showing off, proving their diversity and unexplored importance - similar to Guillemots - without plagiarising themselves or anyone else. Youth Group are undertaking what most British bands are doing and beating them all at it, rising above competition with style, talent and intrepid glory. Like Echo And The Bunnymen, you kind of know they're going to be more appreciated as time goes on, but if you come across one of their releases in the record store, give it a shot and as long as you like great harmonies, death defying vocals and truly impressive lyrics, you can't go far wrong.
As a complete contrast (and in a bid to stay away from the names Wolfmother and Vines) a quick look at the punk anthem-makers of the island and a slice into the world of Frenzal Rhomb. Like a lot of other Oz groups they sound slightly behind the trend with a late 90s NOFX cadence and thunderous stampede of cavernous lyrics, but as is the case across the board, it just works. Instead of being passé, it forms an alternate existence of current jingles bringing in the rebellious nature of American punk and mixing it with more cultured meaning. The fast Flogging Molly-likedelivery of 'F**k You And Your F**king Band' is twinned with the sub-political comic rant of bygone Oceanside retro-punk while playfully gliding the odd truly great line in, counting the all-rounder, "F**k you and your f**k'n punk rock, retro, indie cock-rock stupid band"... what can we say...
The diversity of the paramount artists belonging to Australia is massively dissimilar compared to here; where we ride one sound until it gets old, then employ another. Oh to live in a place where almost anything goes...