Woodboot's Doing The Crime Time

Seriously, can Woodboot get any more diseased? Since the Brisbane band started out some years ago as a passing concern, the core duo of Dan and Julien cranking out scuzzed out garage punk, they have grown like an Akira homunculus, sucking in Sam McKenzie (Sulphur Lights/Occults) on second axe bludgeoner duties and Donnie Miller (No Anchor/Roku Music/Forevr) eschewing guitars and smashing the kit like the reprobate Troglodyte that he is. Crime Time is the fetid result. Each song is all about brevity with a mainline blast of fuck-you punk, tearing viscera through their serrated sawing and heckling howls. Songs like ‘Trash Dump’ is the kind of punk we hear a lot of around Brisbane parts, from the 70s punch of The Leftovers to the cartoonish chaos of Undead Apes and everything in between, but then you get to the killer slack-jawed, legs-splayed power punk of ‘Prison Planet’, all jagged edges and dripping Neanderthal fangs, that the transmogrified remnants of the likes of Hank Wood, Circle Jerks and the Spits are ripping through the entrails of the four-piece, a chest-burster showing the diseased intent within. ‘Gut You’ is fucking feral, all blood-vessel searing feedback and three-chord torture, throats being shredded almost out of psychopathic glee. ‘I’m Gonna Push You In Front Of The Bus’ is, despite of its name, a more “pop-oriented” punk blast, a Ramones template lynched and dragged along the bitumen behind a busted-up V8, some semblance of attractive melody showing beneath the blood and gashes. I can even hear ‘Return Of The Rat’ in Crime Time’s insistence that there should be rhythm underneath the sledgehammer-and-kerosene debris, if somewhat used and abused.

I’m proud to know Woodboot – I'll do time for them for sure.

Shoegaze FOREVR

The falling away of Brisbane shoegaze giants Roku Music after only one album (last year's stellar Collider, and Sonic Masala Records' first release) has left a hole in the fabric of the Australian music scene, as their take on the gargantuan sonic wash lifted aloft by sonorous angelic vocals was mesmerising. But despite rumours that the band rumbles on, there are other outlets to embrace. A few weeks ago we were in thrall of the punkgaze esoterics of Deafcult (featuring Roku's Innez Tulloch); and now we have FOREVR, the new project for Donnie Miller. Aiding him in these further expeditions in fuzz-soaked abandon is Sam George-Allen, and their four-track taster Demonstration is incredible. Her vocals on the woozy submerged-sun-trip 'Yucatan' for example lends an air of ethereal distance, a Syren held aloft, out of touch, much desired. FOREVR takes a stronger electronic/metallic harshness to 'Heart Of Ice', yet the kinetic energy that bounces refracted off the synthetic/organic hybrid adds a luminous halo to the deeper acrid tones on display. The decadent imagery continues on sinuous creeper 'Midas At Night', while Miller's guitar bends and dips in his inimitable style, both an affront and an embrace. They finish off with the cascading cacophony 'Forgive', which despite its name holds an aura of aggression under the seam of white sparks that shower down from the heavens. Demonstration is a cheeky title, as FOREVR launch forth fully formed, their powers for all to see.

Demonstration is out now on shiny garish gold cassette. FOREVR launch it with an instore at Tyms Guitars in Brisbane on Friday July 10.