(Sony)

Aussie rock’s elder statesmen refuse to age

Much loved for their evergreen power-pop ditties like What’s My Scene?, Bittersweet, Death Defying and Like Wow – Wipeout!, Sydney’s Hoodoo Gurus seem to exist in a parallel dimension to the rest of present-day rock landscape. Aside from their one-off 2003 reincarnation as psychedelic rock monsters Persian Rugs (the hilarious, glorious Turkish Delight LP is a bit of a lost classic), Dave Faulkner, Brad Shepherd and co have retained the luminous guitar jangle and crunch and rousing harmonies that typified their vintage releases. These days, it almost seems that the six years since 2004’s excellent comeback Mach Shau haven’t really passed, with the latest album Purity Of Essence possibly being the four-piece’s finest since 1985’s Mars Needs Guitars. Opener Crackin’ Up, with its surging chord progression and Faulkner’s instantly recognisable, ever-so-slightly-nasal vocals, is an instant Hoodoo Gurus classic; Are You Sleeping is arguably the band’s most gentle moment and I Hope Your Happy bounces like a scene from The Blues Brothers. The proverbial cake, however, goes to the angst-ridden friendship breakup story Over Nothing and closing intergalactic rocker The Stars Look Down, while the rest of the record, pierced by Shepherd’s scintillating leads, is ain’t no filler either. Bravo, Hoodoos – we wanted you back and you came back in style.

****½

DENIS SEMCHENKO

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(PIAS/Liberator)

Disco-punk party-starters slow the pace on album number two

New Young Pony Club’s debut was indisputably a party album, packed with catchy melodies, dance-able beats and coolly sophisticated pop songs about being young, pretty and adrift in the London nightlife. That album’s biggest strength, though, was the elastic, punk-funk bass that tied all the songs together, and this is the key element that carries over to the group’s second album. The Optimist is a darker, moodier affair than Fantastic Playroom; it is the sound of the clean up after the party, the fried nerves and the emotional fall-out. The synths are icier this time around, the arrangements fuzzier and the melodies more minor-key, but that insistent, throbbing bass is there to carry you through, reassuring you that, no matter what happens, going out dancing is always an option. Lost A Girl and We Want To are spiky and self-assured, while The Optimist and Before The Light are dreamier and dronier, songs to get lost in. The best track, though, is the last – slow, simple and kind of devastating, Architect Of Love chronicles a break-up, bringing out an unexpected vulnerability in Ty Bulmer’s vocals. The Optimist is an album that invites you to listen from beginning to end, and get lost in the haze – it’s less flashy than their first, for sure, but no less rewarding.

****

ALASDAIR DUNCAN

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(Southern Fried)

Did someone say eclectic?

When it comes to making insane, off the wall techno tracks, Italians pretty much have that shit locked down – just think back to Black Box, whose affinity for catchy piano hooks and go-for-broke approach to illegal sampling forever etched the phrase ‘RIIIIIIDE  ON TIME!’ into the public consciousness. Italian DJ and production duo Crookers sound very little like Black Box – they favour fidgety electro, Bmore and hip hop to piano-led house – but their approach is no less eccentric. Tons Of Friends, as the title suggests, comes packed to bursting point with guest stars – Kelis, Will.I.Am, Major Lazer, Miike Snow and Yelle among them. In fact, I counted, and it has more vocalists on it than it has actual tracks to contain them. The synths screech and wheeze and the beats are all over the place, swerving from dinky dance hall rhythms one minute to pounding techno the next, with little space to breathe in between. This combination sounds like it should make for an unholy mess, but in actual fact, Crookers’ debut is pretty great – its appeal comes from the fact that, even after a few listens, you still have no idea what might be coming next. The highlight for me is Hold Up Your Hand, which features Roisin Murphy, but that might just be because it’s the closest thing to a cheesy dance floor banger on the album. Needless to say, I can’t wait to hear what Crookers have to offer when festival season next comes around.

***½

ALASDAIR DUNCAN

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(Domino/EMI)

Devonté Hynes’s latest paean to musical restlessness

You can’t help but feel a little sorry for Devonté Hynes. As the lead singer of briefly-lived but much-hyped British dance-punkers Test Icicles, he had his fifteen minutes of being the next big thing at the tender age of nineteen. After that band dissolved because they didn’t actually like the kind of music they made, Hynes went on to record under the name Lightspeed Champion, producing an alt-country album (Falling Off The Lavender Bridge) with none other than Mike Mogis, one of the Monsters Of Folk and the guy behind Conor Oberst’s sound. Since then, Hynes has taken to giving away a ridiculous quantity of music online and collaborating with as many other musicians as humanly possible. On Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You, Hynes doesn’t exactly dispel his cultivated unpredictable image. Gone are the quiet Omaha-folk stylings of Lavender Bridge, which are replaced by a more driving Brit-pop sound, albeit Brit-pop filtered through Andrew Lloyd Weber’s histrionics (The Big Guns Of Highsmith sounds like it was ripped from a B-grade musical). There’s certainly diverse instrumentation, with Etude Op. 3, ‘Goodnight Michalek’ being driven by classical piano and I Don’t Want To Wake Up Alone being ornamented with rococo string arrangements. But no matter how many gems are in this album – and there are a few – stylistically, it’s a dog’s breakfast. Hynes is still clearly searching for a sound to call his own – but his frenetic approach isn’t likely to get him there.

***½

CHAD PARKHILL

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(Root And Stem)

Sonic landscape gardening

What’s in Brisbane’s water supply that we’re turning out world-class instrumental hip hop artists like Kurtis SP and Tigermoth? Is somebody grinding up DJ Krush albums and feeding them into the pipes? If they are it’s working and I’ll gladly begin feeding my copies into the grinder – just doing my bit. Kurtis SP started out as a drummer with live hip hop acts Shin-Ki-Row and 2Dogs and like a lot of drummers who’ve turned beatsmiths, he mixes live instrumentation and samples with a precision that stops you from realising where one ends and the other begins. This, his debut album representing 10 years of hard work, is a mixscape you can get lost in. It’s a mix of bedroom chillout and survival horror soundtrack, atmospheric enough to give Burial a run for his money. More Soul is, as the name suggests, soulful as all get-out with an extremely funky beat, horns and bongos, which makes a nice break from the late-night, slightly mournful, almost claustrophobic stuff that is No Passenger’s default sound. The Lost Man is straight back into the doomy kind of stuff, focussing on the taut drums. If Kurtis is playing his own drums on this, then nice work. In just over 45 minutes, No Passenger creates a lush landscape that you’ll want to return to again and again.

****   

JODY MACGREGOR

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(Rogue Records/Inertia)

Varied solo album from Guillemots frontman

For those not aware, Guillemots are something of a sensation in the UK, their second album Red reaching the top 10, while their debut record Through The Windowpane attracted a nomination for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize. Not bad for a band who blend indie rock with faintly avant-garde arrangements (typewriter and power tools have been among the group’s instrumentation). Coming from such an eclectic band, you’d expect any solo album from this group of individuals to follow suit. Which the new album from the band’s frontman Fyfe Dangerfield certainly does, though not at the expense of accessibility. Dangerfield is clearly a talented singer and songwriter, with an almost restless energy. On the his debut solo album, Nick Drake softness, soaring bombastic ballads, radio-friendly rock and indie esoterica sidle up together. Dangerfield is determined to show his mastery of several genres, while the likes of When You Walk In The Room are present to display his ability to simply sit down and write a catchy pop song. While this lushly produced album shows Dangerfield’s range, there’s a thread missing which makes the songs seem thrown together more so than part of a cohesive whole. Which can be a good thing, but Dangerfield somehow loses his identity in the process; the ultimate result is a likeable batch of tunes, which lack a central character.

***

MATT THROWER

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