Reviews

Castle Face

Eddy Current Suppression Ring All in Good Time LP

EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING, one of the best and most celebrated Australian bands of the ’00s, popped into the last few weeks of 2019 to drop a new LP with little fanfare, like they hadn’t taken most of the decade off. And while a lot changed in the interim between their last full-length, 2010’s Rush to Relax, All in Good Time finds the band sounding largely the same. With a couple of minor tweaks to their character settings—they’ve bumped up the NEU! slider a few notches and the PAGANS slider down a few (but left the TROGGS slider untouched)—they’ve turned in a gentler, more thoughtful album, one that will likely appeal to the tired ears of the fanbase that is now nine rough-ass years older. There’s nothing on here as manic as “Anxiety,” as explosive as “Sunday’s Coming,” or as revelatory as “Pitch a Tent,” but it’s still a treat to hear such an inimitable band play through a set of solidly crafted songs. They may not have rushed to get here, but this is the most relaxed the band has sounded—it suits them well. Now, let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another nine years for the next album!

Exek Biased Advice LP reissue

Originally released in 2016, Biased Advice is EXEK’s debut full-length and still stands tall next to their subsequent triumphs. There’s no getting around the fact that EXEK’s biggest initial inspiration was PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED, and “A Hedonist” is about as close to a perfect homage to said group as you could desire. It’s a testament to how good EXEK is that any and all comparisons to Lydon and Co. are swiftly rendered stale and reductive. “Replicate” is a masterpiece of seasick dub menace—an iceberg in this instance would come as a relief. A deep dive into a bottomless trench, “Baby Giant Squid” encompasses the entirety of side two and never loses its hypnotic sway or compromises the undercurrent of turbulence that roils throughout. On this epic cut, EXEK surfaces as sui generis. Kudos to Castle Face for reissuing this essential slab.

The Fall Live at St. Helens Technical College, 1981 LP+7″

Even as an unabashed FALL obsessive, I’ve had significantly tempered expectations and legitimate hesitancy when it comes to some of the more recent additions to the band’s already sprawling discography—have y’all seen the cover art for that Bingo Masters at the Witch Trials live LP that came out a few years ago? But fret not, because this live album (yes, yet another one) is actually golden; an impressively sharp soundboard recording of the group in full Slates-era glory, with one world-beating classic after another preserved in the amber of audio tape. “Prole Art Threat” is absolutely withering here, with that raw, unyielding paranoid rhythm in complete service to Mark’s rapid-fire rantings, to say nothing of the blazing run through “Rowche Rumble” that barely clings to the rails, or the off-kilter rockabilly-from-hell delirium of “Fit and Working Again,” or the extra-frantic bashing given to “City Hobgoblins”…just a completely unreal set from the band to end all bands, at a point in time that was arguably their creative peak (although they honestly had a few of those). And the design work is even non-embarrassing, you can truly have it all!