SINGLE OF THE WEEK

REGURGITATOR – Romance Of The Damned

(Valve/MGM)

You’re forgiven if a nice love duet is not the first style you associate with the Regurgitator name, because after all, they have previously released pretty much every other genre apart from nice love duets. Yet here we are with Quan and recent recruit Sekiden’s Seja as the new Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, singing a lovely 2-parter about having the time of their lives. Of course, this is still Regurgitator so there’s more than dancing on their minds. In the case of Romance Of The Damned, the song is actually a love dedication from a stalker, featuring lyrics that are on the surface sweet, about charming your intended’s parents and brushing hands on the street, but once you’re let in under the façade, damn scary. I was watching you sleep from a car in the street/ You looked so beautiful. On paper it reads like a mandate to call the cops straight away, but set to a disarmingly cute Human League-esque synthpop tune, it all suddenly seems so… not alarmingly creepy. Listen, sing along and smile. Just be careful who’s listening.

THE DYNAMICS – 7 Nation Army

(Groove Attack)

Covers bands don’t often get much of a look-in in reviews columns, presumably because if their Counting Crows and Creed songs don’t sound even more identical than last week’s cover band, they won’t get a second callback to play the lucrative Steak Night. However, there are a few who have gone on to bravely try putting a new spin on famous songs, some of whose names you may recognise. Hayseed Dixie play classic rock with a barnload of country twang. Richard Cheese, and more locally Frank Bennett, fluffed up famous songs for cruisy lounge sets. And Human Nature got really fucking greedy bleaching all the colour out of Motown’s highlights thrice and counting. Now multi-national-but-French-based groove five-piece The Dynamics are trying their hand at the market, with a White Stripes cover that’s a bit soul, a bit dub, with the end result undeniably funky. If you ever wanted to hear I’m going to Wichita… sung by some hep cat French and Cameroonish swingers with awesome falsettos, here ‘tis. If you wanted some bow-chicky-waa-waa under that, try the excellent Patchworks Holiday Inn remix. It takes some nerve to tackle such a seminal, decade-defining song, but as The Dynamics have pulled it off so damn sublimely, they’ve earned the right to try their hand at Blur, Madonna, Wilson Pickett and Led Zepplin on their upcoming Version Excursions album.

THE ASTON SHUFFLE – For Everyone

(Hussle)

The extensive biographical press release for Canberran DJ and producer three-piece The Aston Shuffle is impressively chockas with names of labels, world famous DJs and remix partners that I’ve never heard of. I wouldn’t know Japan’s DJ19 from Australia’s Nubreed’s Electric Mix if I tripped over them in a shamelessly namedropping promotional document. So without dance industry context, I can really only report back that the gritty electro touches in this otherwise commercial house track do indeed bang. No wait, it’s beats that bang, stupid. These robotic laser synth noise things just kind of, I dunno, make it good. The little bloops and quacks and wheeeeerps are fun too, especially over the top of some solid ricocheting bass. Maybe the bass is the beats. Does the bass bang? Whatever the onomatopoeic terminology, For Everyone is one of the most fun dance tracks to make its way out of the collapsed warehouses of the clubbing underground and into these distinctly terranean ears for quite a while. Top show.

BEN LEE – Numb

(Inertia)

If there’s any question as to what type of Ben Lee song Numb is after the plonky playful piano intro, your answer will appear no further in than the second line: It just occurred to me ironically I caught a disease. It might not have been Ben’s conscious intention to reapproximate his glorious pop breakthrough hit Catch My Disease, but with an elementary singalong that’s more chorus than verse, building into a horn-backed goodtime life-affirming world hug, it must have twigged that comparisons would be made. To its stand-alone credit, Numb is a fantastic ‘Fuck it, I love making music’ anthem, with a chorus that’s so clever and dumb, as the lyrics so succinctly phrase it, and if radio programming justice is served, it will be inescapable over summer. There’s just that niggling feeling that he’s already done this same trick before to greater effect.

THE NATIONAL LIVING TREASURES – She’s Taken Everything

(Vitamin)

Call it an Xmas miracle, but it’s been a high quality sack of singles for the final week of the year. Continuing on that, The Greatest Living Treasures are not a new logic-deficient Nicholas Cage adventure movie, but instead a new Melbourne rock band whose She’s Taken Everything completes a Mine’s On The 45 of unanimous thumbs up. An appealingly messy pile of guitars upon guitars, TNLT are obviously fans of that broad range of music branded as ‘classic rock’, with elements here recalling The Band, Teenage Fanclub, Big Star and The Black Crowes. While the rollicking guitar work does sit comfortably a couple of rows behind those names, the group’s lyrics still need some work to leave a legacy. Opening lines like She’s taken everything from me/ From the mountains to the sea show how unimaginative and stereotypical some of TNLT’s lyrics are at this stage, when a simpler, less sophisticated but similarly themed lyric like We want pre-nup/ We want pre-nup would have greater impact. Still, these are problems with solutions, and for a debut effort, the most important thing is I’m pressing Play again, and interested to hear what comes from this group next. Merry Xmas y’all, and if you’re looking for a gift, remember: Singles are a way to show you care. But not that much.

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