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Little Animals | Beasts Of Bourbon
Albert | 23rd April

Review by Jen Jewel Brown

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Albert Productions
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Sounds like … what every housewife’s locking herself in the bathroom over.

The Beasts burst out from Sydney’s underbelly with 1984’s The Axeman’s Jazz (Red Eye Records) and have just signed to the hardest-to-get label in Australia, Alberts. Founding Beasts Tex Perkins (vocals and front-man duties) and Spencer P. Jones (guitar) survive, and are joined by lead guitarist Charlie Owen, and Tony Pola (drums) and Brian Hooper (bass) of The Surrealists.

As far as albums go, ‘Little Animals’ is one live son-of-a-bitch. The lightning-fast 10 track set was recorded in three days at New Market Studios in North Melbourne, and was co-produced by the band’s live soundman Scritch. Spurning overdubs, it’s magnificent wrecked electric blues, raw and swaggering, shot-through with chaos theory solos and splattered with lyrics to stick in a censor’s craw. Drug mentions? Little Animals is more like a customs officer’s check list. Hell, these guys are even packing epidurals!

The Beasts’ are both catchy and classic, the Kinks and The Faces, only 50 times more malevolent. Opener ‘I Don’t Care about Nothing Anymore’ could have been written by the late Ian Rilen (Rose Tattoo, X) to whom this album is dedicated. The title track ‘Little Animals’ is a Kurt Weill-style lament for species deceased, showcasing the depth and sophistication of the band. Like something from a Tony Award-winning Broadway play, it is moving, ironic and extraordinary, the perfect vehicle for Perkins’ rich, growling croon.

The caged animals on this bleeding-rare and ready studio record remain a fearsome proposition live – Henry Rollins was raw with admiration when he introduced them at Big Day Out 2006. If they don’t drink or rouse each other to death on tour in Europe, I can’t wait to hear what they come up with on the Alberts label next.

8 out of 10

Baby 81 | Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
RCA Records | 1st May

Review by Jigantor

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RCA Records
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Sounds like … yet another garage-rock band.

The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club really only have one idea: a blues drawl over fuzzy rock guitar. Now, this is by no means a bad idea. It's just that, well, there's so much of it. Baby 81 goes for 60 minutes and, like everything Dallas Frasca has ever recorded, all their songs just blend into each other. To be fair, 'All You Do Is Talk' starts with extended string noodling, and 'Killing the Light' even uses compound time(!). But the rest of the songs are basically medium pace, fuzzy garage rock. Like every other pub band.

The lack of distinguishing features is made worse by the fact that half the songs remind me of other songs. Now don't get me wrong: they're not blatantly stealing riffs á la Jet. It's just that their songs all sound so similar, I think my mind starts wandering. So the opening riff of 'Took Out A Loan' becomes Metallica's 'Some Kind Of Monster', 'All You Do Is Talk' becomes Dido's 'See The Sun' and so on. The lyrics don't help: Baby 81 is full of unmemorable but vaguely pretentious lines like 'you wanna pick something up/you gotta lay it down', or 'your lucky words don't bleed/you tie the end of all we see'. Apparently they're supposed to be political or religious or something.

I want to emphasize that this is by no means a bad album. It's perfectly acceptable Triple J rock. It's pleasant enough listening for the most part, and on occasion they hit the mark ('Cold Wind', 'Weapon Of Choice'). But it's nothing that you haven't heard before. If you like rock music, or if you like to be kinda 'alt-trendy' (after all, BMRC do have the coolest logo in the world), Baby 81 will make you perfectly happy. Just don't set your expectations too high.

6 out of 10

Myth Takes | !!!
Warp Records | 5th June

Review by Jigantor

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Warp Records
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Sounds like … The Music with a turntable.

Rock music good. Dance music good. Dance-rock music? Dodgy at best. At least, that's what I thought until I heard !!!'s (you can call them Chk Chk Chk) new offering. Finally, someone has taken the best bits of rock and the best bits of dance and put them together. Praise the Lord.

So what happens when you slip this in your CD player? Within three seconds, the reverb-soaked title track grabs you and draws you in. One of the highlights of the album, ‘Myth Takes’ is less frenetic than most of the other tracks, but just as compelling. Before you know it you're dumped into the swirling dancefloor frenzy of 'All My Heroes Are Weirdos'. Then you're in the bedroom watching Nic Offer make a fool of himself – it 'Must Be The Moon' - and, boy, are you enjoying it. On the album travels, barely giving you a chance to draw breath.

Every track, with the possible exception of the weaker 'Sweet Life', has an infectious groove that won't leave you alone. The dead weight of their previous two releases has disappeared (hence the 48-minute running time), leaving you the diamonds without the rough. Even the longer tracks 'Bend Over Beethoven' and 'Heart of Hearts' hold your attention so well you lose track of the time. Basically, this album is a party from beginning to end.

Now, dear Reader, I am not a dancer. The last time I danced was at a house party in 2004 after spending far too much time with Comrade Smirnoff. Nevertheless, this album just made me want to jump around like a lunatic. And believe me, that's some feat. If you're still in your chair after hearing this album, it's time to call the undertaker.

8 out of 10

Sky Blue Sky | Wilco
Nonesuch | 15th May

Review by Thomas Mendelovits

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Nonesuch Records
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Sounds like … the world’s most sophisticated band of Americana coming to terms with their own greatness and perhaps, middle-age.

I’m not sure if Jeff Tweedy was joking at Wilco’s recent Palais show when he referred to ‘Heavy Metal Drummer’ from 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as “our hit-song that you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing that summer”, but sadly, this newest record from one of pop’s most (un-)catchy institutions won’t bring them any instant financial riches.

Like many artists’ later releases, Sky Blue Sky sees Tweedy and the band moving into more reflective, even subdued, territory. The album follows some of the tendencies found on 2004’s A Ghost is Born, with soft-folk, soft-rock moments of post-punk. And much like that release, Sky Blue Sky rewards repeated plays, the melodies and lyrics worming their way deeper with every listen.

I have a theory that with each Wilco release their sound becomes more definitely their own just as it becomes more clearly indefinable. While Being There (1996), Summerteeth (1999) and even Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) are unashamed pop, and A Ghost is Born more experimental, Wilco’s latest effort is restrained and on first listen can even seem deliberately obfuscating.

Many of the lyrics deal with Tweedy’s return to health, newfound optimism and apparent reflections on married life, while musically the album moves through plaintive country-folk steel, slide and twelve-string guitars and organs to more robust rock-outs and even Thin Lizzy-like duelling guitar lines. While closer ‘On and On and On’ could be described as a tepid rehash of earlier ideas (in this case Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’s ‘Reservations’), its minimalist piano refrain, like much of the album, is utterly compelling in its own intrinsic and unique way.

8 out of 10

Wilco | The Palais | April 18th-19th
Review by Thomas Mendelovits


Anything your favourite band can do, Wilco can do better. Well, almost… but death metal, hip-hop, and punk are lame anyway.

Over two nights at the Palais, lovers of ‘alt.country’ (or judging by the audience demographic, ‘contemporary adult indie’) were enthralled as songwriter-in-chief Jeff Tweedy sang his by turns earnest, sweet, and cheeky, lovelorn ballads aided by his famously accomplished band of five; including free-jazzguitarist Nels Cline and Glenn Kotche, a drummer who has released solo experimental records of his own. Clocking in at over two and a half hours with numerous encores, the Wilco experience was so awesome for this reviewer and evidently many others who snapped up the half-price offer for Wednesday ticket-stub holders and went again for the Thursday show.

The attention to detail shown over Wilco’s last three studio albums (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, A Ghost is Born, and the yet to be released, though internet-leaked Sky Blue Sky) was equally matched by their live show, with each member adding their own poetic touch and constantly surprising even those fans who know every song note for note. Indeed, during a couple of songs, the whole band looked shocked by some unexpected deft work from Kotche, while the seemingly endless tones coming out of Cline’s guitar plus effects board (he seemed to control the entire mix at times) were a constant delight. The addition of Cline after Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was destined to pad out their live sound, but Tweedy showed himself a most fine player too, and the beautifully jagged lines on ‘At Least That’s What You Said’, which I thought heralded Cline’s coming on A Ghost is Born, turned out to be Tweedy’s doing.


To make such complex pop music takes a lot of work, but the members of Wilco must love music so much that it seems more like play. Just watch I am trying to break your heart, Sam Jones’ documentary about the process of recording Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Jeff Tweedy’s jest: “we’ll bring it to you sitting down or standing up. We don’t even need an audience, we’re like this when we go home to practice alone”, repeated over both nights after some of the more excitable audience members tried to instigate a general rise from seats, does not seem in jest at all when you witness Tweedy and ex-member Jay Bennett’s ecstatic reaction to a single keyboard note while they listen to a playback in the documentary.

To my mind, there’s nothing like seeing a band you love charm the socks off the entire audience in witty repartee, and indeed it was great to see Jeff Tweedy prove he is not so self-serious as some of his lyrics may suggest. He answered almost every heckler and brought the house down on a number of occasions. A call for “A.M.!” (their first album) was answered with: “A.M.? You still listen to A.M. here? You think we’re so quaint, going to bed with transistor radios under our pillows, listening to the ball game”. (The request was granted, however, the band played one song from the 1995 album). On the Thursday, Tweedy came out strumming the intro to ‘Hesitating Beauty’ but after numerous requests started an impromptu ‘Reservations’. Seeming to be swayed by a plea from a woman in the front row (“C’mon Jeff, it’s romantic”) the heartbreaking simplicity of the song was only augmented by the band.

A close tie for most magical moment came with the ridiculously perfectly structured ‘A Shot in the Arm’, which hurtles on and on with the bare minimum of chords, seeming to go nowhere but yet constantly changing. The barometer for ‘most magical moment’ in this case proved accurate with a high proportion of audience members losing their shit to this number. The crowd fell dead silent during the final encore on Wednesday, when Tweedy, alone and unplugged, stood on the lip of the stage and sung an old song from his Uncle Tupelo back-catalogue. By now, the rapport generated couldn’t have been any higher, or the applause any louder, and it seemed both band and crowd left positively beaming.

The Best Damn Thing | Avril Lavigne
RCA NY | April 17th

Review by Mabel Kwong

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RCA Records
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Sounds like … Sum 41 and Blink 182, with a female lead vocalist.

Avril Lavige’s third album The Best Damn Thing is a collection of songs that sound like they were meant to be played live, and played loud. Lukasz Gottwald (Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone) produced the bulk of the songs here, and the album is emphatically upbeat and fast-paced.

The opening track and first single Girlfriend sets the tone for the rest of the album. Upbeat, sing-a-long and clappy, the track even features a cheerleader chorus - ‘Hey, hey, you, you’, a theme Avril revisits throughout the album. I Can Do Better has more ‘Hey heys’ and ends up sounding all too similar to Girlfriend. Likewise Everything Back But You and the title track. The other fast-tempo songs sound rather alike too, all laden with prominent drum beats and guitar riffs. Hot and One of Those Guys must have been separated at birth, their guitar riffs are so similar.

When You’re Gone and Innocence are the lone ballads. The former builds up nicely to a crescendo climax. The latter stands out more with splendid piano work and heartfelt lyrics. Speaking of lyrics, the album reeks of attitude ‘I wanna scream and lose control’ from mid-tempo Runaway and ‘I wear the pants!’ off I Don’t Have To Try. Avril lets angst rip with ‘Damn this guy’ in Contagious.

Overall, the songs sound too much alike for the album to bear repeated listens. The crash of drums and wild guitar playing serve as the basis for this, so it’s unsurprising that the ballads offer some relief. The last track, Keep Holding On from the movie Eragon, is the sore-thumb on the album, being a pop ballad. That said, it’s still comfortably The Best Damn Thing on the album.

6 out of 10

SideA/SideB

Cassadaga | Bright Eyes
Saddle Creek | April 10th

Reviews by Tom Fairman & Jigantor

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Saddle Creek Records
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In this regular feature, two of our writers review the same album, providing two perspectives on the same record. After all, when it comes to music, beauty really is in the ear of the beholder.

Review by Tom Fairman

Sounds like … the love child of Neil Young and Bob Dylan with a dash of M Ward.

Conor Oberst, the mind behind Bright Eyes, is not the new Bob Dylan. Oberst has been plagued by this comparison ever since his brand of semi-political folk-rock was brought to a wider audience with 2002’s Lifted. He is, however, an extremely prolific and dedicated songwriter. And Cassadaga is another chapter in his saga following 2004’s double heavyweight I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn.

Of the divergent musical paths forged in the wake of his previous albums, Oberst seems to have pursued the Western-essence found on I’m Wide Awake. Opening ominously, Cassadaga crystallises the ills of modern society in a single sentence – “Corporate or colonial/the movement is unstoppable/like the body of the centrefold/it spreads." Four Winds follows, complete with a violin riff bizarrely reminiscent of Santa Clause is Coming to Town, which works surprisingly well.

The highlight of the album comes midway through, on Middleman - a potential rock song that has been oppressed and distilled into a suspiciously gentle acoustic piece, which works exceptionally well for Oberst. The song simmers, threatening to burst its mere musical constraints, listeners eagerly anticipating a slash of distorted guitar – or something loud - to break the tension. But this never comes, and by the conclusion, it’s not a track of wasted potential - rather, a cause to marvel at Oberst’s fine grasp of restraint and ability to weave boundless energy within every guitar chord and soft string pluck.

Oberst doesn’t always nail it - Make a Plan To Love Me takes the tempo of 2004’s single Lua, but holds none of its strength, beauty or potency. This sentiment pervades the album. Yet the mastery of Oberst’s work is that which initially appears to be mostly repetitious country ballads, with dedication, reveals a taciturn glow that refuses to be extinguised and compels you to return.

7 out of 10