SINGLE OF THE WEEK

LOVE OF DIAGRAMS – Forever

(Matador/Remote Control)

It should come as no surprise to any Professors of Antipodean Powerpop reading that the wide guitar-powerpop genre has gone through a few phases during its fifty-year run thus far. The more studious experts amongst you will normally be able to precisely pinpoint the era any Australian powerpop song is from, based just on how it sounds, in much the same way someone with a Doctorate in Couchsitting can tell what year a TV show is from based purely on the look of the film. Of course, there are always specimens who will work outside of the accepted guidelines, and in this case, it’s Love Of Diagrams. Forever is the first release from their forthcoming Nowhere Forever album, and it hints at a continued dream run for the Melbourne trio. And while you’ll recognise the pattern of traded male-female vocals from different bands over the years (notably Screamfeeder since the ‘90s, and Iron On since then), and fuzzed up guitars have rarely gone out of fashion since the ‘70s, there’s a distinct aesthetic to this song that makes it sound like a refugee from circa 1991, when powerpop giants like The Hummingbirds, Falling Joys and Clouds walked the Australian musical landscape. (If those names mean nothing to you, I’d urge you to try for extra credit points and investigate them further.) It’s not just the song’s throwback style and vocals, nor the fact that it’s released on vinyl – Forever sounds as if it’s been mixed specifically to harness a dull roar of guitars as the backing line, instead of crisper options that are available today. Still, regardless of where it sounds like it stands chronologically, Forever is only just out now, and comes as highly recommended listening.

MAJOR CHORD – Hey, My Name Is Joe

(Independent)

It’s not often we hear much about mental illness in pop music. And when we do, it’s either making a spectacle out of those who suffer from it (Britney), or talking it up to be a bit of partytime fun (Let’s Go Crazy). Then again perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised – after all, take heartbreak out of the equation, and there aren’t many afflictions that do get much of a run. Which is why it’s all the more refreshing to hear the first single from Major Chord’s second album The Rabbit Hole, focusing around some common symptoms and effects of both mental illness and the medication that goes with it. This is far from a detailed tell-all document, but for a handful of four-line case studies in a pop song, albeit a highly melancholic one, it’s a surprisingly effective way to get some basic ideas across. Covering presumably common cases like hearing voices, literally seeing depression as a shadow and experiencing religious-themed delusionary highs and lows, songwriter and vocalist Dan Flynn apparently draws on his own experiences, giving it that extra bit of cred that something like the Black Eyed Peas’ otherwise-sensitive Let’s Get Retarded didn’t quite achieve. While the lyrics are the centrepiece here (as they are in the adorably jaunty protest B-side Single File), an ever-present organ gives the song just the right emotive sheen, so it never turns preachy or woe-is-me.

DOVES – Winter Hill

(EMI)

It’s been a fair while since we’ve heard anything from Manchester’s Doves. Sure, their last album was back in 2005, but considering that didn’t really make much of an impact compared to their first two, it’s really been about seven years since we were treated to some shiny new noteworthy Doves. They’ve always been an anthemic lot, epitomised by 2000’s Catch The Sun, which still inspires jumping and fist-pumping from anyone with more than two standards drinks in their system. Now they’re back with Winter Hill, and I can guarantee you’ll be hearing a lot of this song. Why? First of all, they’ve just been announced as playing Splendour, which always inspires a flurry of airplay, even on stations that wouldn’t normally consider them. (To hear Jane’s Addiction on Nova the other day was a laughable treat.) Second of all, it’s another beat-driven anthem – not quite relentless enough to start an involuntary mass pogo, but certainly enough to get an entire room stomping their leg as one. And third and finally, it sounds exactly like Coldplay. I know, I know, they’ve become the band de rigueur to compare every mid-paced British group to, but if you can find me another bunch of pasty lads that sound more like 2008-era Chris Martin and co, John Farnham will give you his phone number. So Winter Hill gives that old uneasy feeling of welcoming back a favourite band from the past, with a song that’s almost certainly destined to be their biggest commercial success, despite it being a paler imitation of their earlier work.

DECODER RING – Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom

(Inertia)

Decoder Ring, the Sydney ambient-rock-electro group who made a splash with a pair of albums in 2004-05 then took some time off, have decided to get back to work, and they’ve submitted the song Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom as evidence of their progress. Now I’m neither a record producer nor a band, so I’m not entirely sure how the process of matching up producers with bands actually works. Does one woo the other with complimentary FB messages and ‘how about it?’ texts? Or is it more of a referral process, where you rely on mutual friends to hook you up? Maybe you just wake up bleary in the morning to discover that you’ve knocked up an album together. Either way, Decoder Ring sound like they’ve hit it off immediately with producer Scott Colburn. Colburn has had a taste of helping idiosyncratic indie bands maintain their sound but take it to new levels of success – namely with a couple of little groups you may have heard of, in Arcade Fire and Animal Collective. It’s the Animal Collective link that sits most comfortably here, as both groups love to focus on piling layer upon layer of experimental noise over the top of what is at heart a pop song. So Decoder Ring is definitely Colburn’s ‘type’, and it appears to be a mutual attraction, as Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom creates sparks with its slow-building, circular guitars and choir-like synths. Swoon.

SIMON TOPPER

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