Eyes Wide x Ninety

I’ve been meaning to write about this busted rock’n’roll release for ages – a Brisbane tour-de-force to be sure. Led by ex Standing 8 Counts madman Tom Beaumont and joined by Ben Buchanan (Chinese Burns), Rick and X (Eat Laser Scumbag!, Chinese Burns), Eyes Ninety's debut LP has all of these sounds rattling around its rustbucket offering like a soul trying to bust itself out of a sweltering outback prison – decrepit, fetid, disintegrated and a ramshackle mess that is mesmerising. The lung-flaying opener 'I Don’t Wanna Live (In Your World)’ pulls no punches, offering a rusted garage caterwaul. Other great tracks (they are all pretty great) includes the scourged 70s pub punk of ‘Canton II’, the Eddy Current static-tetchy growl and punch of ‘Ants’, the Stooges with no fidelity in a tin shed appeal of closer ‘New Key’. It makes sense that this bruiser is on Swashbuckling Hobo Records – this kind of skewed rock punk (as opposed to punk rock) is right at home in its dirty halls. Get into this here.