It’s been a long time since Garry Gray strode stages in Australia with a de-toothed chainsaw swinging at hip level as he fronted the psychodramatic Sacred Cowboys, so it’s reassuring to hear his menacing tones emanating from a studio again. This four-track EP is a taster to an album and measures up to expectations nicely.
Gray has been living in France but re-located to Australia and committed most of this to tape in Adelaide in late 2013. The usual influences, if not the usual suspects, are at work and our own Robert Brokenmouth did some of the heavy lifting in co-writing and making the session happen.
Skeletal guitar weaves away on “Eight Dragons”, a wordy interplay with Gray’s commanding vocal at times working against the meter of the languid, dark accompaniment. It sounds like an early Velvets out-take with Darwin-via-Adelaide guitarist Travis Grace providing the licks.
There’s an affectionate “You Got The Silver” with some nice slide but the stand-out is the title track, a rambunctious, pulsing song with a sung-spoken, double-tracked Gray vocal and some probing Grace guitar.
The well-travelled James McCann (ex-Drones, Nunchukka Superfly and his own bands) figures on guitar on the demo version of “Diamond In the Forehead”, recorded by a different band presumably in Melbourne. It’s the title track from the forthcoming album and the rockiest track on the EP, and is a dance between swirling Ben Sullivan drums, McCann’s acrid guitar and Gray’s idiosyncratic vocal.
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