Thursday, 4 February 2016

No Limits to Jack Lee (And Petersham)

Jack Lee has done it again.

Stepping out of Beef Jerk to do things on his own once more, Lee's record No Limits (out through Osborne Again) is a bruised and battered slab of broken thoughts, moods, dreams, gaffer-taped together to punish and revere. 'Slip On Piss', the opening track, is killer - a dour diatribe on the shitty "adult situations I keep gettin' in". Lee's lip curled, lyrics drawled/spat, pummelling, feeling like shit. It's a self-loathing backwater dirge of brilliance. Of course the album doesn't hold an even keel, going through wonky pop dreams and broken ruminations of getting stuck in Sydney and ukelele/karaoke sessions in Mullumbimby, dog parks, bottle shops, footy and crates of beer, all centred around the suburb of Petersham. It has the downer vocal/lyrical power of Kitchens Floor, the dry spoken-word wit of James Boyd or Nathan Roche (who makes an appearance on 'Sagres'), the wry loquaciousness of  Dag (whose Dusty Anastassiou also pops in to co-write and "star" in the excellent 'Stuck In Sydney'). It has the ramshackle energy of the best hardscrabble bands coming out of Australia like cockroaches abandoning a fiery building. The best parts of Australian outlier downhearted rock then. I love this record. Grab No Limits here.

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