EMPIRE OF THE SUN
Walking On A Dream
(Capitol/EMI)
Empire Of The Sun is the new collaboration between The Sleepy Jackson’s Luke Steele and Pnau’s Nick Littlemore. On paper it sounds pretty impressive, right? Well in plastic, it’s even better! Walking On A Dream is a blissful and trippy 43-minute sun-drenched journey into another world, a world that exists somewhere between The Beatles acid-infused Pepperland and Willy Wonka’s surreal chocolate factory.
It’s an effortless and laidback affair for Steele’s distinct voice and layers of supremely superb falsetto that, throughout the course of this disc, becomes its default setting along with soft electro beats, acoustic guitar and some soft electric guitar lead. See first single and title track, the opening ‘Standing On The Shore’ and next single ‘We Are The People’ as evidence of this, they barely shift tempo and blend seamlessly into one another with that perfect synergy one looks for in a record.
This pace shifts bizarrely (and awesomely) a couple of times; first on the oddball ‘Delta Bay’ which seems placed purely for the sake of mixing it up, but which perhaps would be more at home on a Sleepy Jackson record. The album’s next left-turn and definite highlight ‘Swordfish Hotkiss Night’ is a funky-assed piece of solid gold – more reminiscent of Pnau’s creepy ‘Wild Strawberries’ – that sounds like Roger Troutman took Prince’s little red corvette for a spin around Pharrell’s backyard. The rest of the album finishes with a Bowie-esque vocal on ‘Tiger By My Side’ and the brilliantly cheesy 80s high school slow dance of ‘Without You.’
The duo have stumbled upon something very special with Empire Of The Sun, leaving one hoping that this is not a one-off hook-up. It combines simply stunning melodies with a warped synth backdrop that results in something close to warped genius.
HHHH½ Ben Preece

JENNY LEWIS
Acid Tongue
(Rough Trade/Remote Control)
With her first solo album (in title only), the singer of indie pop darlings Rilo Kiley, Jenny Lewis, has filled the ranks around her with a host of terrific musicians such as M.Ward, Jonathan Rice, Elvis Costello and more, making what should be a sure-fire, hit-filled album of country, luscious pop and a little bit of white soul… Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Just taking the first handful of tracks into account finds a landscape so uneven that it’s completely disconcerting. Kicking off with ‘Black Sand’, there’s an 80s sheen that leaves the same bad taste in our mouths that Xanadu did decades ago. From there Lewis dons the role of simmering siren in ‘Pretty Bird’ and gets all southern boogie for ‘The Next Messiah’. It’s the strangely disjointed update on James Brown’s ‘It’s A Mans World’ that really leaves Lewis with little identity of her own – ‘Bad Man’s World’ has the right sound of orchestrated pop, but none of the emotion.
If you make it through to the title track, you’ll be left making a collect call through to Dusty Springfield because someone needs to let her know that Lewis has all but hijacked ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’, transplanting her own chorus in and calling it her own.
In an attempt to be everything to everyone, Lewis has ended up with an album that’s devoid of any real identity. As if every song was a new outfit, she’s gone and gotten lost in her own wardrobe – despite the obvious talent that lies within her voice and the people she has surrounded herself with. Acid Tongue however comes nowhere close to her work in Rilo Kiley – there are too many crutches and borrowed ideas here for it to be anything more than a glorified covers album.
HH½ Jo Hill

THE PICA BEATS
Beating Back The Claws Of The Cold
(Hardly Art/Stomp)
Sub Pop has decided to branch out, creating an offshoot label for those quirky artists that even fall between the Seattle giant’s floorboards. The Pica Beats are one of the first releases for the label and consisting of one man, R.Barrett, and his surrounding friends, this debut sounds quirkier than anything Sub Pop has released since those early Sebadoh albums.
It’s a folksy, homespun take on the kind of indie pop that bands like Mates Of State have been revelling in of late. What starts off in ‘Poor Old Ra’ as slightly off-kilter but humble-sounding acoustic pop soon takes an interesting turn with ‘Martine, As Heavy Lifter’, a duelling banjo and sitar instrumental not something you hear every day.
From there, we delve into the basement with ‘Summer Cutting Kale’ having a mildly early GBV vibe, all the while the bright and vivid melodies keeping everything buoyant. This, however, becomes a totally overwhelming Rob Pollard or even Lou Barlow sensibility with ‘Shrinking Violets’, rough-as-guts percussion lining a strummed electric guitar and Barrett’s voice straining to wring the messages out of his vocal chords. The album does raise its head into wonderfully arranged, full band pop with ‘Cognac & Rum’, this mixing of hi-fi sensibilities with lo-fi stabs blending effortlessly. And you’ll find no scraps in the tail end either; every one of these 11 songs betters the one that came before it.
This debut album has a real Machine Translations vibe throughout, the rustic and raw delivery mixing company with the refined and radiant melodies and messages. Beating Back The Claws Of The Cold is hardly going to call out for you to find it, but should you stumble upon it you’re sure to revel in the uncut charms of this gem.
HHHH Richard Alverez

COLD WAR KIDS
Loyalty To Loyalty
(V2/Shock)
From their name alone, you always knew Cold War Kids were going to get a bit political from time to time and here, on their second long-player, not a whole lot has changed, with the bleak tone which dominates proceedings becoming a little monotonous after a full listen.
Nathan Willet’s technically proficient, bluesy howl still runs the show and still comes across like a drunk Jeff Buckley. Well-placed organ and genuinely psychedelic 60s-inspired guitars are as prominent as ever, however the band never quite lives up to the hype that surrounds them and this heavy-going record lacks anything truly memorable. Like The White Stripes with the sharp edges shaved off, the album largely consists of trad-blues workouts in search of some sort of energy and relevance.

Most of the songs spend their time looking for a tune, but occasionally a palatable number like ‘Mexican Dogs’ or ‘Every Valley Is Not A Lake’ shows the same pleasure that made ‘Hang Me Out To Dry’ a highlight on album number one. ‘Welcome To The Occupation’ is devastatingly bland, while the suicidal ‘Avalanche In B’ makes your Gran’s funeral look like a night at the Moulin Rouge.
While this might be the last time Cold War Kids can use their buzz to sell a record, they do seem well-equipped enough to deliver a classic in the future. From time to time, they hint at a brilliance that laced songs like ‘Hang Me Out To Dry’ on their debut. Sadly, Loyalty to Loyalty doesn’t deliver what we should be expecting; it’s competent and, while they haven’t expanded their sound at all, they’ve deepened it. Now if they’d just lighten the fuck up now and again.
HH½ Ben Preece

TOM COONEY
Presque Vu
(Elnino Elnino/Inertia)
As is par for the course for most independent artists, Brisbane singer-songwriter Tom Cooney has faced an uphill battle in finalising his debut album Presque Vu. But with the finished product having just hit the shelves Cooney’s fine attention to detail has clearly paid off, resulting in an impressive debut album. Delivering on the promise of his 2006 debut mini-album Hold Me Down, Presque Vu is an intensely intimate listen that resonates with Cooney’s compelling voice and the barest of bare arrangements. Indeed, the music behind Cooney’s voice here is pared down in a way that strips all the non-essentials, but it’s far from one dimensional. A whole host of local and national identities have contributed subtle yet effective touches to these 11 tracks such as saw, bowed guitar, glockenspiel and banjo, while long-standing Holly Throsby collaborator Tony Dupe adds a plethora of atmospheric sounds to the album’s opening half. Out the front of it all, though, as a guiding light is Cooney’s delivery. Subdued yet capable of understated power, Cooney’s is a voice that instantly moves the listener.
His knack for lyrical economy works like a charm on opener ‘Golden Thread’ and ‘Echoes In The Hall’, while the beautiful ‘Giulia’ and ‘Beneath The Wheel’ indulge in more full-bodied narratives with equal appeal. Elsewhere, the heartbreaking ‘Cycles #2’ and the pensive ‘The River’s The Same’ are perhaps the pick of the bunch here. Presque Vu closes with Cooney continuing to probe dark subject matter with ‘Sadness?’ and ‘Silence’. As Presque Vu attests, Cooney’s talent lies in his capability to do so much with so little – the measure of any talented artist.
HHHH Justin Grey

SPOD
Superfrenz
(Valve Records/MGM)
Australian music really is in a fantastic place at the moment. There have been innumerable events this year that have attested to this fact already, but for additional evidence, consider demented Sydney synth-rocker Spod and his fantastically brilliant sophomore album Superfrenz.
One of those special releases perfectly served by its surreal artwork, Superfrenz is a mangled synth-smash of a record which magically unites the unrepentant giddiness of childish glee with the joyously violent and sexualised excesses of adulthood. It’s the kind of record which makes you giggle incessantly while swearing uncontrollably. Simplifying its charms in the extreme; if Walt Disney ever immortalised Ibiza in a children’s cartoon, Superfrenz would be the soundtrack.
The album kicks off impressively with an explosion that sounds like New Order covering Acid Mother’s Temple, before easing into the percussive grooves and strutting vocal presence of opener ‘Dangerzone’. As ridiculously catchy and dementedly funky as ‘Dangerzone’ is, however, it’s an inadequate primer for the sheer mind-bending delight that awaits the listener further into the album. The diffident vocals, duelling synths and clever lyrics of ‘Dead’ are, simultaneously, slyly intelligent and unabashedly stupid, while the stuttering industrial-funk of ‘Blubberponies’ leaps from minimal strut to explosive panorama with an ease that is as immediate as it is humbling.
There are many adjectives and reasons one could bandy about when discussing a record as grand as Superfrenz, but perhaps its greatest strength is that such highfalutin analysis isn’t really necessary at all. It’s just a flat-out freaking cool listen, regardless of how much meaning one injects into the listening process. Outstanding.
HHHH Matt O’Neill

BURZUM
Anthology
(Back On Black)
Burzum is an historic band. Apart from the much spoken of actions surrounding Burzum creator Varg Vikernes (aka Count Grishnackh) involving church burnings, murder and a variety of other attention grabbing exploits, the music created by Vikernes laid down a blueprint that has largely set in concrete the aesthetic qualities of Norwegian Black Metal. It’s a blueprint that is still under examination today, used as a guide to accessing exactly how ‘black’ this most recent wave of Northern European upstarts may be considered – and interestingly few of them have the divergent properties that made Burzum such a phenomena.
Here on Anthology, the qualities that made Burzum an entity and influence beyond their infamy can be heard on seriously well-pressed 180gram vinyl. Each blast of bleak-fuelled noise-hell is just how it should be!
It’s important to realise as well that these recordings are largely the result of one musician. Indeed Burzum’s most important legacy was the creation of a band format from just a lone musical character – for all purposes Burzum is Grishnackh and this solo master of instruments has spawned a plethora of singularly minded black metal musicians across the globe, including Australia’s Sin Nanna (better known as Striborg). Equally, the musical weight of Burzum’s extension of post-classical moods and ambience into the realm of bleakly distended metal overtones created a unique place from which to offset beauty against corrupted horror and anguish. Between the moments of almost angelic ambience and possessed noise, Burzum is a rare and perfect union that heralded a new black heart for metal in the 1990s. If you’ve lived this long without Burzum in your life, you know what’s next on the ‘to download’ list.
HHHH½ Lawrence English

THE REAL McKENZIES
Off The Leash
(Fat Wreck Chords/Shock)
This is the sixth studio album from the veteran Scottish/Canadian punks, and as with their previous ones, there’s an even mix of old Scottish anthems and original fare – but not to do the sweaty, kilt-clad lads’ songwriting abilities down one iota, it’s their take on the ancient stories of the frozen highlands that are the most fun. There’s the magical ‘The Ballad Of Greyfriars Bobby’, a legendary Scottish tale that hops, panting, out of the past and tugs at the heartstrings.
‘Kings Of Fife’, with its chugging guitar and rolling ‘r’s, is catchy as hell but slightly unintentionally hilarious. “Here’s to the lasses and here’s to the lads/And the good times we were so glad to have/Drinking in the Kingdom of Fife” – anyone who’s ever been to a Baptist wedding in Kirkcaldy can have a bit of a chuckle at that one. Fife’s a shithole.
Album opener ‘Chip’ is a little cracker with first-class kick-ass bagpipes by Matt McNasty and a humdinger of a tall story to tell. There’s one quieter, slower track in the shape of ‘The Maple Trees Remember’, which is a pretty far cry from the sound of the rest of the album – the lyrics are as Scottish as Black Watch tartan, deep-fried pizza or knife crime, but this track sounds like it’s being performed on Uncle Jesse’s back porch with Luke Duke on banjo and Daisy on the fiddle. It makes for an interesting fusion, and highlights the connection between Celtic and Appalachian folk music.
Although they never really reach the heady heights of Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly in the Celtic punk world, the McKenzies do hold their own and always sound like they’re having immense fun doing it. Off The Leash is no exception – but on CD, they’re never going to sound as off the leash as they do onstage.
HHH Baz McAlister

FI CLAUS
Bijoux
(Independent)
The story goes that a record label exec once told Jack White that you couldn’t have a hit with a song that was only two minutes in length. White then took the exec to the nearest record store and showed him the Buddy Holly section. That same analogy can be applied to the 11 gorgeous songs that grace Fi Claus’ debut solo album Bijoux. Only one of the songs stretches beyond the three-minute mark and the album itself only just makes the 25-minute minimum length for an LP, but the songs prove as deep as they are breezy thanks to their irresistible arrangements.
An intelligent creative streak flurries throughout Bijoux – not that Claus reaches Dylanesque heights of lyricism, but rather she excels as a dynamic, versatile and naturally gifted musician. As well as self-producing, Claus plays guitars, cellos, violins, harmonium organ, glockenspiel and train whistle, as well as handling string and horn arrangements, leaving the few supporting roles to drummer Andy Sylvio, bassist James O’Brien and Executive Producer Pete Murray. Bijoux bounds along at a summertime pace on Claus’ delivery – reminiscent of Joanna Newson, but, of course, with the twang of an Aussie accent. ‘Get It’, ‘Perfect Day’, ‘Get Me Up’, ‘Fly On The Wall’ and the heady ‘Now I Know’ are enticingly charming, while ‘Friday Song’, ‘Age Old Song’ and particularly ‘Just The Rain’ are touching in their tenderness.
Lovely local lass that she is, Claus has made Bijoux available to Brisbane residents (and MySpace friends) a whole three months prior to its national release next January. Given her six years spent in Gorgeous, it’s no surprise Claus proves a delight branching out on her own. Bijoux is a great introduction to an exceptional new talent on the Australian solo singer-songwriter scene.
HHH½ Justin Grey

IDA MARIA
Fortress Round Your Heart
(SonyBMG)
Ahh, Norway; land of snow and… death metal. It’s a country which is often overlooked when it comes to musical ability in favour of fashionable neighbor Sweden, with their Hives and their ABBA and their Hellacopters. But Norway sits there, gripping the Arctic Circle, mocking the rest of the world for being pussies. Don’t believe they’re taking the piss? One word: Turbonegro.
Okay, I’ll admit I don’t know much about Norway’s music scene (or the country in general), aside from awesome Blues Explosion knockoffs the Cato Salsa Experience, but everything I’ve heard emerge from there has a great energy, and Ida Maria is no exception.
Fortress Round Your Heart’s most noticeable feature is its pace. Current radio hit ‘I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked’ is a good indicator; a song that feels like it’s perpetually trying to get away from itself. The occasional crack in Ida’s voice only serves to push the desperate speed of the tune and with only one verse and chorus repeated the minimally acceptable number of times for a pop song (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, chorus breakdown), there’s barely a second to think. This exuberance is present across the whole disc, rearing its head in opener ‘Oh My God’, follower ‘Drive Away My Heart’, handclap-infused goodtime tune ‘Louie’ and penultimate track ‘Queen of the World’, to name but a few.
To break up the rabid enthusiasm there’s a couple of breathers, one conveniently placed in the middle, one at the end. Thankfully here, and elsewhere on the album, the pop simplicity of the songs means that there’s none of the “whoops, I don’t actually speak English at home” lyrics that have occasionally dropped from northern Europe.
HHH½ Tal Wallace