(Universal)

A band that’s already travelled the world before this first album

Melbourne’s Children Collide have managed the neat trick of sounding bigger than they really are, and in a couple of ways. Firstly, there’s only three of them in a standard rock trio set-up, but they fill out the spaces with a surprising practiced panache. And that leads to the second way – they’re not at all troubled by a shortage of confidence. No doubt a product of their honing their chops solidly for three or so years before this debut album, its dozen tracks here fairly leap out at you already taut and road-tested. Adding to the points in their favour is the assured production in L.A. by Dave Sardy (The Dandy Warhols, Wolfmother, Jet). They’ve come up with a burnished, bash’n’crash hybrid of post-grunge, neo-punk and plain ol’ rock - they use well-proven techniques like loud-quiet-loud, scream’n’whisper and so on. Frankly, that’s a cliché and they veer towards that at times, sounding a tad too methodical and deliberate in the process (e.g., Seasons Changing). But mostly they rise above such concerns, especially on more driven tracks like Economy, Chosen Armies and Cannibal, making this a potent first album from these guys.       

***½

BILL HOLDSWORTH

Comments (2)

1. Written by Ax, on 16-10-2008 16:52 , IP: 124.191.112.95     Great album

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