This record is so smart it should have lifetime membership of Mensa, but its a cleverness that's never snobbish or intellectual. Mr Flabio sits back, tongue in cheek and pen at the ready, and takes aim at the directionless, the Interwebs generation and yes, you and me, with withering accuracy. This is melodic fuzz guitars played at stun volume and Mr Flabio’s sardonic barbs are meted out with sugar hits embedded in their pop hooks.
Let’s get this out of the way up front: “We Will Riot” is a grunge record. It’s just gone 2015 and someone is actually making a grunge record? What the fuck’s grunge anyway? You expected Silverchair with short hair? Nirvana wearing nursing home pyjamas?
Mudhoney says Kim Salmon invented it and who are we to argue? When you got down to it, grunge was really just a bunch of tuned-down metallised guitars and anguished punk rock vocals with shithouse dress sense. It got the major labels a little too excited and wiped the musical landscape clean for any other form of rock and roll – and not necessarily in a good way.
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 6014
This album stinks so much of stale beer that you’ll wonder if you hit your head on the footpath on a late-night bender and woke up in a homeless shelter It reeks of hops - and i don’t mean that nancy boy craft shit either. This is your stock standard, public bar piss. So fuck off if you want a cocktail.
Which should all be no surprise. It’s the fourth studio album in 15 years for the VeeBees and “Outta Ammo” is no great departure, sonically speaking, from its predecessors. It’s crude and dirty with a nod to Moorhead, the Tatts, Powder Monkeys and the Psychos. When you’re on a good thing, why not stick to it?
Aussie Yob Rock has been around since Thorpey plugged in and killed that tankful of fish to the sound of punters yelling “Suck more piss.” VeeBees bypass boogie and play it with an edge that betrays listening to lots of hardcore, especially Black Flag.
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 5163
I have a bad reputation as a reviewer. Though 70 percent of my reviews are fanatically positive, I can be harsh on anyone I find not pulling their weight. But, given the fact I have a collection of several thousand discs, I can’t be THAT fussy, can I? Christ, all I generally ask is that you don’t scrape your knuckles on the floor.
Fox Company don’t really fit into my preferred choice of listening. For me, they float uncomfortably close to the world of Guns ’n’ Roses. But I also know that floating uncomfortably close to the world of Guns ’n’ Roses isn’t necessarily considered to be a bad thing by a huge chunk of people who listen to rock music and, in particular, that chunk of readers who view me as a cranky and crusty old relic.
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- By Bob Short
- Hits: 3978
Reviewing the new Radio Birdman box set is an absolute poisoned chalice. You know I’m going to give it five bottles, right? It contains most of the great recordings by the greatest band to have sprung from these shores. Bar none.
I include everyone in that statement from the Easybeats through AC/DC and onto whatever crap that is currently passing itself off as popular music. Forget your Hoodoo Gurus and your Sunnyboys, your Birthday Party and your assorted Johnny Come Latelys. This band was Ground Zero and Year Zero. Accept no substitutes.
"Radio Birdman. Box Set. Seven CDs. One DVD. One hundred Aussie bucks. Five Bottles. Yay. It’s great."
And that has been the extent of the reviews of this thing. Nobody has wanted to prod it with a stick and turn it on its side. And with several good reasons. Radio Birdman have always put the fanatic into fans. No more surly beast has ever walked the earth than a Radio Birdman fan.
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- By Bob Short
- Hits: 11753
You all know who Dan Brodie is, right? He’s released several LPs and EPs and yeah. You need this lil’ gem in your collection.
Why? Apart from the songs, it’s a fine little story of r’n’r excess, consequences, surgical procedures and ends with a damn-the-consequences romp in sterling style. I’ll quickly add that the production on the EP is damn fine too - that’s Glen Hewer, and the mastering is raucous and clean: David Briggs.
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- By Robert Brokenmouth & The Barman
- Hits: 5881
Here it is folks - this is the sound the “cool kids” make these days. “Cool kids” being what the wearers would dismissive as a totally pejorative term, but essentially being a title for whatever constitutes a “scene maker” in these musically fractured times. “Scene” being another pejorative word.
It’s hard to keep up with contemporary music once you pass a certain age - even when you’re consciously trying to cock an ear to what seeps out of cracks in the footpath and shuns daylight. Of course it’s a given that you shouldn’t pay attention to just about ANYTHING that makes it to commercial radio airwaves, but in this case "contemporary" means the underground shit, maaan. And Los Tones are under the commercial radar by any measure.
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- By The Barman
- Hits: 6035
More Articles …
- Movement / The Marianas - Deep Where All Drown (Deep Where All Drown)
- Memory Deluxe: I Knew Buffalo Bill 2 - Jeremy Gluck/Robert Coyne (Flicknife)
- Detroit - Sonic’s Rendezvous Band (Easy Action)
- Nobody Likes Us – Alice Cooper (Easy Action)
- Tales of Endless Bliss - The Primevals (Closer Records)
- Sun – Dreamtime (Conquest of Noise)
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