Unless you’re an incredibly culturally-insolated Mum who’s picked up this magazine from the floor of your kid’s room just to see what this Mine’s On The 45 singles column your children don’t stop talking about with their friends all week is, I don’t think I need to explain who or what Wolfmother is. Regardless of how many of the original trio are left, the group had such a uniquely successful debut record, spread out over a number of years, that the word Wolfmother has become a powerfully recognised brand name synonymous with epic retro-rock. And everyone’s already made up their mind. You might adore them for belting out now-quasi-stoner classics across a smokey fist-pumping festival. You might roll your eyes at the most overhyped and derivative one-record-wonder this side of Jet. But put all that shit aside for a minute, and think back to 2005. Do you remember all the way back to their first EP? It featured a few tracks, including one called Apple Tree. At the time, it was a startlingly catchy murky blues-rock tune that many, myself included, assumed to be from The White Stripes’ then-upcoming Get Behind Thee Satan record. Such a mistake these days seems ridiculous, given how saturated our exposure to the afro dude has become. Yet here we are again, and putting biases aside, the first taste of Wolfmother’s second album recalls the same vibrant thrill that Apple Tree did. Back Round is loaded with mega-mega guitars, stoner riffs and more than a touch of throwback. But Andrew Stockdale’s voice sounds fresh, like he’s excited to be doing this all over again, making the entire affair wholeheartedly fun. I was happy to never hear the band again, but Back Round is going to cop a flogging on my iPod.

At first, the brow is furrowed with concern. Moody piano tinkling is joined by beefy, chunky guitars and a dude squeezing out more attitude than melody in his vocals – it’s possible this is going to be another band inspired by Linkin Park. Not promising. But wait ... after the first cautionary verse, No Time For Tears flips around into a rousing Britpop-style amped-up power ballad. Now sure, plenty of folks will think we need another Oasis like we need another Linkin Park, but I’m talking about the mid ‘90s Oasis, when even their most inane or nonsensical songs were anthems for entire festivals to put their arms around each other, sway en masse, and sing as one about your comparative speed to a cannonball without even a hint of cynicism. It was glorious non-guilty Oasis, safe in the knowledge that it would never get old, until at least their third record. The Enemy isn’t pure Gallagher-aping though. With the dance-rock chunkiness and soulful lady backings, in parts it sounds more like The Music covering Primal Scream, and it’s this inherent Britishness that might stop The Enemy from taking off here like they have back home. Still, fast-forward through the unbearable first minute, and it’s a decent addition to your new mixtape.

Do you know The All-American Rejects’ last single Gives You Hell? Sure you do. It’s been a massive hit across the country for months. It’s that brattish pop-punk song that won’t go away. It’s so lightweight makes their tour mates Fall Out Boy sound like abstract artrock. Now the Oklahoma punk rockers release their follow-up single The Wind Blows – a tender, schmaltzy, slip of a ballad that you’ll swear you’ve heard before. In fact, the team here at Mine’s On The 45 was so convinced that we’d heard it before, we pressed play and held up one of those snazzy new mobiles that somehow tells you what the song you’re listening to is. Those things are mental cool. In our case, it actually identified a few songs that The Wind Blows sounds exactly like, which I will dutifully report to you now: (3) Hey There Delilah, but with that song’s harsh testosterone edge removed; (2) A Jonas Brothers song playing about three houses up the street, so any vague trace of rock is carried off by a slight breeze; and (1) an album track from Daryl Braithwaite’s Edge, if the producer had forced Daryl to hold his nose while crooning.

Here with his first single is Brisbane trance prodigy, and apparently Australia’s #1 DJ, tyDi, though I don’t have the source for those stats. How often do they reassess the order of DJs – is it a weekly chart? It better not be updated more often than that. If you’re the #1 DJ, and you’re dropping scorcher after scorcher on Saturday night, just tearing the club apart with an amazing set, and then you misfire with one track, do you walk out of the booth to be told that you’ve dropped to Australia’s #12 DJ? Your manager placing a towel around your shoulders saying "I told you the dance remix of Sonia Dada’s You Don’t Treat Me No Good No More would have gone down better than the original"? Yeah, it’s clear Mine’s On The 45 doesn’t know much about the DJ scene. However, for those of you who do inhabit the baffling world of dance clubs on weekends, Foolish will most likely be pleasing though not revolutionary dancefloor fodder, featuring Keshia Kiely on vocals. Although far from industrial sounding, there are some interesting digital noises on here that sound like they’ve been sampled straight from a factory – deep, booming thumps that could be sheets of corrugated iron hit with a hammer, pulse-raising gushes that could be second-long samples of an industrial fan. It’s still relatively generic house, and there aren’t any hooks to give TyDi a breakout, but if it sounds like your scene, lap it up.

Ahh, The Galvatrons. Is there any Australian synth-rock band that more accurately captures the sound of their ‘80s forefathers, Pseudo Echo? On Cassandra, their influence hasn’t changed. In fact, they sound more like Funky Town than before, if possible. The mix of hard rocking bravado over some adorably lame power synth chords would have made this song an ideal inclusion on any ‘80s lightweight soundtrack. I’m thinking the perfect fit would be TeenWolf. You know how Michael J. Fox’s bestie Styles is meant to be the coolest cat in town, surfing on top of vans and compulsorily wearing shades – but when you’re watching it he’s just a dork, but he’s so over the top in his supposed cool that he becomes a lovable self-parody? Cassandra ticks the same boxes.

SIMON TOPPER

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