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REVIEWS
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King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
I’m In Your Mind Fuzz
Six albums in three years: seriously, WTF? Who cares?
It’s all been great so far, and this is no exception. The first
four tracks are essentially one long jam, and a great one
at that. Fans of Jeff The Brotherhood and the like will wet
themselves over what I’ll coin “
The Mind Fuzz Suite
” ...an
urgent flurry of fun-times, twang and well, fuzz, to be sure.
Meandering none too dissimilar to Mink Mussel Creek with never-ending batteries,
but faster, crazier... and harder. Just listen to
Hot Water
: it’s eons ahead in intelligent
folk-psyche experimentation with a twist of strychnine. Wayne Coyne would be a proud
father to these bright young things. (
Remote Control/Inertia) Chris Murray
Guy Pearce
Broken Bones
Rewind nearly three decades and Kylie, Jason and Guy had
a band in Ramsay Street. Kylie and Jason moved out and
pursued pop careers, but Guy – the most musical of the trio
– resisted the urge to record, trying to avoid the soapie star-
turned-singer stigma. After doing some soundtrack songs for
the low-profile movies
Heaven Tonight
and
A Slipping-Down
Life,
Pearce has finally issued his first solo album, and it’s a quiet triumph.
This is adventurous, mature pop, alluring and absorbing. Fans of Mark
Seymour and David Bowie should investigate. (
MGM) Jeff Jenkins
Jack Ladder and the Dreamlanders
Playmates
Sometimes all you need is a good voice. Tim Rogers’ (not
that
guy) pipes are so powerful to the heart, it’s unfair. Unsure? See
the vids for the magnificent
Cold Feet
and the newbie from
this album,
Come On Back This Way.
Sold! The ‘Jack Ladder’
moniker is smart. He’s tall, ‘Jack-ish’, and the word combination
is cool. Ladder’s craft is a winning combination of cheese and
confidence. Not bad cheese; rather that personal trigger which
makes one feel young, fun, wise and melancholic – all in a blink.
It reminds you of innocence and regret. Here, Mr. Ladder dives
into brave territory; equally an alternate soundtrack to Winding
Refn’s
Drive
(the seductively sleazy,
Her Hands
) as a pseudo-
industrial pop-romp with
Reputation Amputation.
Then there’s the
alternate exotica extraordinaire of
Let Me Love You
. Essentially a
pop album, the type Nick Cave may have made in his 20s if he’d
lived in NY. Perhaps the real secret: Ladder created this in the
Blue Mountains. He’s clearly unworried about what you or I think.
More power to him.
Inertia (Chris Murray)
The Church
Back to the Front
Many Church devotees were aghast: guitarist Marty Willson-
Piper was out, replaced by Powderfinger’s Ian Haug
–
and the
band’s 21st studio album opens with a track called
Vanishing
Man.
But fear not, this is one Church that hasn’t failed its
congregation. Haug’s addition hasn’t altered the trademark
sound.
Further/Deeper
has the classic Church ingredients –
drama and tension, part psychedelic, part spiritual, part dreamy.
And it rocks. It’s tempting to call it a return to form, but The
Church never really lost it – it’s just been up to the listeners if
they’re along for the ride. A beautiful contrarian, Steve Kilbey
croons “I gotta go in the other direction,” in the engrossing
Lightning White
. They reference Laurel Canyon and Miami,
but no American band – or Australian band – sounds like
The Church. Need proof of their genius? Hear the aptly titled
Delirious.
This is the album U2 should have made this year:
experimental but accessible, unpredictable and meandering,
but always compelling, and filled with majesty and love.
Jeff Jenkins
(
Unorthodox/MGM)
Machine Head
Bloodstone & Diamonds
Having achieved the impossible by resurrecting their career
with
The Blackening
, Machine Head have slowly, if surely,
regained fan credibility. The
Burning Red/Supercharger
era has been conveniently swept under the carpet, and I’m
sure the band is now conscious of what works.
Bloodstone
& Diamonds
doesn’t overstep the mark. While the songs
do differ in length – falling within the 3 to 9 minute mark – the lack of solid riffing
slightly weakens the impact. With a collective past including membership in Vio-lence,
Sacred Reich and Juggernaut, I will always (perhaps unfairly) expect sightly more from
Machine Head. (
Nuclear Blast/Caroline/Universal) Simon Lukic
Such Gold
The New Sidewalk
New York melodic hardcore lads Such Gold are fairly
unapologetic in addressing the direction of their new album.
They have assertively and deliberately bolted from the pop
punk pen that bred them, fed them and granted them a name
on the world stage, and had a crack at being a little more
‘innovative’. What does innovation sound like? Swirling time
signatures and bold, gutsy riffs. It also sounds a lot like A Wilhelm Scream.
If you’re unsatisfied with punk by numbers,
The New Sidewalk
offers a bold
new path for you to follow. (
Razor and Tie/Cooking Vinyl/Universal) Emily Kelly
Lamb of God
As the Palaces Burn
(DVD)
As the Palaces Burn
was originally shot with the
intention of documenting Lamb of God’s 2012 world
tour. But things changed drastically when vocalist
Randy Blythe was arrested on manslaughter charges
in The Czech Republic. Blythe was charged with the
death of Daniel Nosek, a 19 year old fan who died
after stage diving at a 2010 concert
–
Blythe had
allegedly thrown Nosek off stage, so he was seen
as being responsible for his death.
As the Palaces
Burn
captures the powerlessness of his situation,
because while Blythe was eventually, and correctly,
exonerated – no one really won. From concert halls
to the courtroom,
As the Palaces Burn
is a gripping
experience. (
Sony Music
)
Simon Lukic
Lagwagon
Hang
It’s been a long nine years since Lagwagon’s last original studio
album, and the face of punk has evolved. The landscape in
which Lagwagon nestled during the release of 2005’s
Resolve
is an entirely different beast to the wildly lucrative, arena-
conquering, major label mayhem that now dominates the scene.
It’s immediately apparent that vocalist and mouthpiece Joey
Cape is all too aware of this as he insists that the album needed
an identity and a purpose before it could be released, and the
band – long heralded as defining genre giants – could reform.
But the heartbreaking conclusion is that the sound and message
enveloping
Hang
can be desperately sad at times. In fact, it
borders on intolerable in moments like
One More Song
, in which
Cape pays tribute to friend and collaborator, the late Tony Sly.
Thankfully there’s an effervescence that permeates the overall
tone. An enduring – if often obscured – hopefulness prevails, and
most importantly, there are more than a handful of skate punk
bangers that have us ultimately convinced that it’s time to get
back on the wagon. (
Shock) Emily Kelly