Reviews

Tenth Court

Sachet The Seeing Machine cassette

An indie rock quartet hailing from Sydney, SACHET offers a delightful and angular perspective on progressive pop. Their newest album, The Seeing Machine, was released as part of a pair of cassettes promising mellow melodies, carried by the sweetness of the vocalist. Her light voice paired with the jangled instruments makes for a great carefree atmosphere, detailed by Nick Webb’s wah pedal, Kate Wilson’s bubbly drums, and saccharine lyrics. “Redecabbaged” and “The Lodger” capture the essence of airy post-punk imbued into the album, similar to the CARDIGANS in mood but distinctly alternative. A great addition to their discography, this third release, running short of fifteen minutes, unfurls a welcome mat to those looking for some good fun.

Shrapnel Sedan Crater LP

Garage-tinged psych-pop from Sydney’s SHRAPNEL, with a dense, maximalist vision (there’s seventeen songs on this thing!) that’s articulated with an aura of in-the-red, blown-out fuzz still signifying “lo-fi” in spite of how full and sharp the production actually is. Opener “Catch You Out” immediately brings to mind the swirling, lysergic kaleidoscope world of the OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL, if only they’d been more obsessed with the SOFT BOYS than the BEACH BOYS, as the soaring, roughed-up British Invasion hooks in “Fountains of Ute” and “Taking Hold” likewise cast straight back to ’90s-era home-recorded wall-of-sound eccentrics from GUIDED BY VOICES to the MOLES to the APPLES IN STEREO. There’s so much other ground covered here, though—“Ice Cream,” “Pickup Sticks,” and “Miller’s Daughter” have a more contemporary OZ DIY sensibility, recalling the arch, jangly, and sarcastically named 2010s dolewave micro-scene centered around bands like DICK DIVER, CHOOK RACE, TWERPS, etc., while the synth-laced, shimmering power pop of “Turning the Knife” suggests Ork Records-era CHRIS STAMEY fronting GAME THEORY, and might just be the best song on the whole LP. If any of the (admittedly not standard MRR) references in this review push even one of your buttons, give this a go.

Wireheads Potentially Venus LP

I’d somehow gotten the impression that this was a new band, but nope! Turns out this Adelaide sextet has been at it since the early 2010s, and this is their fifth LP! How about that? I guess that explains why they sound like they know their way around a song. In any event, you can file this record alongside your LPs by bands TERRY, UV RACE, PRIMO!, etc. WIREHEADS play a distinctly Australian brand of garage-y post-punk, heavily influenced by the VELVET UNDERGROUND, but also a little twee. Unlike those acts, these folks tend to go on more indie rock-ish digressions, at times getting closer to MODEST MOUSE or BUILT TO SPILL territory. But I think the thing that will stand out to most folks is the band’s technically poetic lyrics. The vocalist delivers them in a sprung rhythm full of alliteration, half-rhymes, full rhymes—basically all of the poetic devices—sounding like a mix of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Mark E. Smith, and the dude from SLEAFORD MODS. It’s genuinely impressive and, at times, like in the first handful of tracks, tremendously satisfying. But over the course of eleven tracks and forty minutes, it can also feel tediously clever. Overall, I’d say it’s worth your time—there really are some fantastic songs on here.

Zipper Dreamer’s Gate cassette

ZIPPER includes a couple of members from recent Australian deathrock/goth candelabra-carriers NYLEX and RULE OF THIRDS, and some of the stark SIOUXSIE-isms of those projects have definitely been carried over here, but Dreamer’s Gate pairs its strict rhythms and needlepoint guitars with a more dreamy ’80s pop shimmer; a new wave mirage in soft-focus pastels refracted in the distance of a monochromatic post-punk desert. Vocalist Haruka gives ZIPPER much of that spark, alternating between Japanese and English in animated shrieks and shouts (like the ones playfully pushing against the moody, straight-out-of-the-BUNNYMEN bass line of “High War”) or gossamer sighs (the early/mid-’80s 4AD-referencing context of “Flower”), often in the same song (“Ice”). Keen debut, especially in a typically staid subgenre that has little interest in coloring outside of the lines.