Screamfeeder - Pop Guilt

Australian band Screamfeeder have been knocking and playing their brand of indie pop for about for quarter of a century. The combination of male and female vocalists has drawn comparisons to The Go-Betweens however for many Screamfeeder songs the female voice is upfront rather than relegated to the background.

The band mix up the style of their song without straying far from indie pop territory. There's a definite Pixies influence seeping through the tunes "Falling" and a touch of the poppier side of Husker Du in "Got a Feeling". "Going to California" is a quick punk style burst with a heavy dosage of pop.


Prepare yourself for cake and booze, because the distorted "Making it Up" is a good cause for fans of Australian indie pop as it looks to Australia's indie pop past as it contains a hint of Grant McClennan without feeling like a carbon copy of what has gone before.



While there is variation between the songs on "Pop Guilt" which takes away any boring sameness, there's a lingering feeling that editing this album and chopping a number of songs would have been much a better move than lengthening the album by providing bonus tracks.


Release Date: 23 June 2017




3/5


Screamfeeder on bandcamp.


Screamfeeder on Facebook

The Ax - The Queen of Dirt

The Ax  - “Our Queen of Dirt”, 2009
(Whoa! Boat)

Seattle two-man band The Ax have a debut album that can divided into three sections.  For the first four songs play garage rock that invades guarded personal sound space like an over-agressive washing machine filled to the brim spinning on a heavy-duty cycle.  Possible band comparisons would be Sonic Youth or The Gordons as the vocals on “The Albino” are used as a separate instrument.  In the second part, from “Sharp Teeth”, there’s a Gordon Gano nasal whine over the top of a disorienting near metallic loud droning noise.   In the third and final act, The Ax re-metamorphisize into a fuzzy industrial sandpaper-raw abrasive noise blur with a slight touch of the Jesus and Mary Chain in the singing and using feedback as an accompanying instrument.  . Their quick-change act also changes them into the audio equivalent of blurry vacation snapshots that your friends pester you to look at. Politely you say, “That’s nice” while you’re just secretly hoping they’ll stop and just go home shortly.   In The Ax’s case, I just hoped the songs would get shorter even though none of them reach over the three-minute and a half mark.   Future music theorists will write dissertatons on how a band can drone on and bore in such a short time if anyone actually cares enough about this band to place  “The Queen of Dirt” in a time capsule.

 There is a fascination with close-ups of human eyes and low budget B-grade sci-fi on the album artwork, which indicates a weirdness for weird’s sake if it hadn’t been most likely stolen directly from The Residents.   Admittedly it was late at night but I fell asleep listening to this album a number of times.   That it’s possible to sector this album into parts proves that this material would have been better released as EP’s because these fourteen songs are difficult to digest in one entire sitting.  

2/5

The Ax on bandcamp

The Ax on myspace

Very Quick on the Eye

Australia had a reputation for producing great pub rock bands during the early 80's. A few of these endured long enough to find international stardom. While the rock scene was thriving, the more alternative pop bands such as The Triffids, Ratcat were overlooked although the Hoodoo Gurus managed to punch through the side line with fantastic power pop hooks. There's a good many that think The Go-Betweens really should have found their way to commercial radio and may have been a huge success story. There's no denying "Streets of Your Town" and "Spring Rain" are some of the finest pop songs ever written and the band could have been Australia's answer to R.E.M. "Very Quick on the Ear" is a demo of an all male three piece Go-Betweens stripped down and raw pop.

Be Very Quick on the Click.