It’s laborious to withstand an album with a title like Hoo Ha!, so I used to be, ahem, naturally eager to search out out what all of the fuss was about.
The fourth album by Adelaide punks Dangerous Dreems, it’s the newest in an Aussie guitar renaissance, that’s seen bands like The Chats and Pist Idiots getting worldwide consideration.
Spearheading this new wave are the mullet- headed Melbourne Bogan Blondie Amyl and the Sniffers whose producer Dan Luscombe takes the controls on Hoo Ha!.
The bands share an analogous power and humour although Dangerous/Dreems are angrier of their love/hate portrayals of the Ocker Aussie working class male expertise.
Typically in comparison with fellow Antipodeans AC/DC and The Go-Betweens, on this proof Dangerous/Dreems sound extra like early Damned, with the political sensibility and anthemic choruses of The Conflict.
There’s a good bit of Paul Westerberg’s Replacements thrown in for good measure as nicely.
What units them aside is the power of songwriting partnership Ben Marwe and guitarist Alex Cameron.
The characters Marwe embodies could not at all times be admirable, however they’re complicated, well-rounded and rendered with real authenticity.
As with earlier albums there’s a preoccupation with the seamier facet of life Down Underneath, the hazard lurking behind the facade of suburban center class tradition.
In Waterfalls an indignant character prowls the streets, spouting streams of consciousness, however is he malevolent, or simply laborious carried out by? It’s as much as us to resolve.
The band weave in much less salubrious parts of Australia’s historical past into the combination – railing on the whitewashing from faculty textual content books of Aboriginal and First Nations heroes on Jack.
In an analogous vein, Mallee seems on the ugly facet facet of early days of the colony ‘a race to the underside’ with ‘massacres of the mudflats’.
Mansfield 6.0 probes the more moderen previous, with riots towards Covid-19 restrictions happening at the same time as an earthquake strikes in September 2021.
Poisonous masculinity is personified by the pub ranter on See You Tomorrow, whereas the bitter New Breeze feels like John Lydon at his most vituperative.
Marwe’s lyrical dexterity reaches its zenith on Black Monday, the singer spitting traces like a hyperactive auctioneer.
Whereas the subject material is commonly bleak, the music is melodic with up tempo riffs and dynamic choruses. Occasional keyboards and even flute lighten the temper, like lanterns within the darkness.
There are moments of actual poetry too on songs like Disgrace, Godless and No Island, whereas the superb Collapse! seethes with explosive rigidity.
A considerate, highly effective and generally brutal piece of labor.
