We here at Sonic Masala have been huge fans of Australian malcontents The Peep Tempel for some time - their last album Tales was a true highlight of 2014. They are back with Joy - a simple truism. The way this band manage to growl, gurn and glower with equal measure of intellect and idiocy - telling tales of gritty Australian Gothic in all its Dead Heart, Wake In Fright garish glory.
The grinding noise winds around Blake Scott's abrasive vocals like barbed wire, the ticker-tack patter of drums an egg-timer counting down into the depths of the broken, blasted soil of 'Kalgoorlie', tales barked and mewled of losers, fighters, bruisers, nightmares one and all. 'Totality' is a more obvious propulsive affair, yet with a desolate space emanating from the quieter moments - a scum-film sweat skin forming over all it touches. 'We You Forget' is a barbed anthem to the frazzled and frayed disenfranchised, revelling in the rabble of suburban offcuts; 'Rayguns' a manic screed against the insidious machinations of a political landscape gone mad, the rich taking the last lifeboats and nonchalantly cutting the life buoys in half, those left the detritus of the outlying land, born to lose and racing each other to the bottom. They even have some Krautrock and seductive barroom blues to burn on 'Neuroplasticity' and 'Go Slow' respectively, which is always a lot of fun. 'Constable' though is the grizzled highlight, an anecdote told through rolled cigarette smoke, cracked lips, salt-stained singlets, a sea of stubbies and dismantled furniture surrounding our laconic bruiser of a narrator, the king of his damaged domain.
The trio have been playing around the great southern land over the past month, playing alongside the likes of The Spinning Rooms (they are back out there, yes!!!) and Eyes Ninety, and have a couple more up their sleeve in Sydney and Melbourne - make sure you catch them, they are incredible. And while you're at it, grab the Record from their Wing Sing store here.
Ausmuteants won't give a shit what I write here anyway. The Melbourne punk wastoids have made that abundantly clear with their track 'Music Writers' off new record Band Of The Future (out now through Aarght!) - an acerbic vomit that pierces the bubble on critics, both of the page and from within the scene. But you can never take these guys seriously - the album title alone throws shade on their Devo shadings, carving themselves of the Marty McFly's of proto-punk's past, flitting back and forward, changing history by deliberately crushing bugs, ripping off butterflies' wings, and beating mouthbreathers at their own game. Plus BOTF builds on last record Order of Operation's clarity, injecting the slicker sonics with familiar spit, pace and leers. The rants and tantrums are as visceral and zanily ridiculous as we have come to expect, yet even more infectious, like a sandblasted canker, with that rank synth whirr throwing us into the surreal and absurd. Nailgun blasts of punk that leaves slackjawed wonder in its wake, with bumps of T-Rex glam and Boggles wrongness to ingest. In short, brilliant. (But what does any of this even mean? What the fuck would I know? Just listen to it already.)
The Peep Tempel released one of Sonic Masala's favourite albums of 2015, Tales, and one of the most underrated rock acts in the country are back with a killer song and video for 'Rayguns'. A bullshit crazy newslogue purge with rolling-news lyrics, .gif ready stock clips fused to the band revelling in their zero-fucks chicanery. It comes from 3rd LP Joy, which promises to get deep into the human psyche and wade maniacally in the roiling chaos. There are still a great degree of Australian grotesquery and humour in their offerings though - opener 'Kalgoorlie' alone lends whiffs of Wake In Fright horror. And while we are at it, below this excellent video is another taste of the album (out later this month through Wing Sing Records), 'Totality'.
Screamfeeder closing out our second Sonic Masala Fest is still (and will always remain) a defining moment in my life. The band have continued to play together and release the periodic new song since re-releasing their albums on vinyl through Poison City Records, and 'Karen Trust Me' is the latest ebullient slice. They have their miasmic noise pop down pat - every chord change, swelling squall, cymbal crash and Steward/Lloyd harmony is present and accounted for, embedded with myriad hooks of all persuasions that it is impossible to remain impervious to its charms. It's enough to keep the withdrawal at bay until their promised 8th album in 2017.
Back to the insanity then. Melbourne punk messes Mesa Cosa have crafted a pagan travesty for their film clip for new track 'Stone Bone'. Still riding the serrated ridge between raucous psychedelic and fucked-up garage rock, the madmen don marsupial, Ex-President and Simpsons masks while running rank in the wilderness, destroying their instruments, TVs and other paraphernalia to climax in a jerrycan-fuelled bonfire for the ages. The boys spend a good portion of the time with their heads impaled on sticks too. They have sold their soul, sacrificed their body bags, and lost their minds - all for our eternal benefit.
Members of Freak Wave, Iowa and Camp Cope join forces to travel back in time to flannel fuzz Valhalla in TV Haze, an act inimitably indebted to Dinosaur Jr in both rambling guitar rock and dry, warbled vocal delivery. The 90s throwbacks continue, but with this self-titled effort it feels warranted, a welcome addition that climbs to the upper echelons of their contemporaries, yet steeped in Australian music nostalgia. They are playing some massive shows in Melbourne next month too supporting the aforementioned Screamfeeder as well as playing alongside SM faves Pale Heads, Ouch My Face and Summer Flake.
We will finish with post-punks Gold Class who are making their way back to Europe after a successful stint over here earlier in the year. New track 'Kids On Fire' feels (to me at least) a mix between obvious signifiers (Joy Division, The Smiths) and more rugged outliers (slowed motorik Hey Colossus, and The Spinning Rooms - really! - with the little guitar lick that strikes me like Joe's saxophone - maybe I just miss those guys so much). The film clip IS Gold Class - black and white, smoked lens, white on black, Venetian shadow, strobe glare. Urgent earnestness. The guys play in London at The Victoria October 26 with The Bodies - it looks to be a tense affair.
I used to have these neighbours who would yell at their kids all the time. Things like ‘Get off the fuckin’ table, Tyler, and put your bloody sister to bed’ and ‘Where did you put my fuckin’ durries, Tyler?’ They were always really nice whenever we met putting out the bins. He was fly in, fly out. She was slightly out of it most of the time. I never actually found out what their names were, apart from Tyler, that is.
Most times we would make small talk. She thought the neighbours two doors were a “coupla fuckwits” and that Australian Idol was rigged. He thought that anyone who didn’t drink Toohey’s New was a “bloody poof”. These are the families Australia is pretty good at producing. Docile bodies for a docile land. A place where change is always a day or two away (until it rears up right in front of you and casts off years of ‘she’ll be rights’ in an awkward and angry mix of sweat and under-expressed emotions). And we just get on with it. And we love it. And we love it. But does it love us?
I can’t help but think the answer is ‘no’.
The Peep Tempel get all of this into Tales. There is a pent-up, self-aware restlessness, like the eyes of a butchered pig, smiling lipless as its hoofs and arsehole gets shoved into a sausage destined for Tyler’s dinner cause his dad just spent all his cash on a new dirt bike. There is paranoia. The big fish around here keep going on about just how big they are. Yet deep down under the beer-battered gills, they’re not sure they’re that big at all.
But this is not judgement from on high. It’s a strobe-light on the wooden dance floor of run down pubs around Australia. Car lights through the front windows of the houses along the main roads where shame is lashed with Toohey’s New and kids get up on tables with their parent’s packets of durries because the government spent money on fighter jets instead of more teachers at school. Tales shows the bits and pieces of the families that get up and go to work every morning to make enough money to get by.
The last thing I ever heard those neighbours say sums it up for me, I reckon. Tyler was running in a million directions at once around the front yard while his dad put the bin out. Tears all down his face. “He’s just split up with his missus at school today, poor little fucker.” Tyler heard his dad and ran fist-first for him. His dad just slapped him on the back. “Don’t worry, mate. We’ll always love ya.”
