The Single Life: Killer New Tracks This Week From The Wombats, Polish Club & More

It’s often the case that days of political danger and/or stupidity inspire some of the best art. Or maybe the artists just focus better when the shit starts coming down. Odder still is when an audience seems to suddenly realise there’s something more in a band’s lyrics than rockin’ and rollin’ all night long. Despite their roots in America’s south, you didn’t have to look too hard to find progressive thinking and pleas for equality in the songs of The Drive-By Truckers. And while things may have become a bit more overt since The Great Pumpkin took over in Washington, some of the responses when the band put out a song like The Perilous Night (ATO) is perverse. Kinda like a bogan’s surprise working out Midnight Oil might be in favour of indigenous land rights, some of the Truckers’ old constituency – usually those flying the flag of a nation defeated in 1865, or (even more disturbingly) one that lost in 1945 - are outraged. “Just play music!” comes the cry of the redneck, who obviously really wasn’t listening in the first place. Happily they’re in the minority, with more embracing DBT as ‘Dance Band of The resistance’, as makes far more sense.

Then again, there’s other desires you can be honest about. With a clip equally candidly explained as “A shit video for a great song”, Polish Club make the simple request to Gimme Money (Independent). And who are we to deny them? Beside the direct request for the dosh, the two-piece come with a recognisable yelly insistence in their racket. It’s messy, but in a good way. And how can you argue with music, VHS technology, and facial hair all with their roots in the turn of the decade from the ‘80s into the ‘90s.

There’s also a whiff of familiarity to The Wombats new noise, even if you do feel that bit older when realising its now ten years since A Guide To Love made the world realise just who they were, and Australia happily embrace them as they gave our wide brown land an askance compliment by naming the band after a favourite burrowing marsupial, and playing a couple of shows at the Opera House. Lemon To A Knife Fight (14th Floor/Warner) is still a bit scruffy as it tumbles out a somewhat puzzled bemusement at finding yourself with a citrus fruit as your weapon of choice. They namecheck David Lynch as one of the touchstones for this, but it’s really probably more the English dark awkwardness of League Of Gentlemen than Wild At Heart.

As his frogs and ducks wander across the chorus, there’s something quite Australian in the surrealism and relaxed vibe (maaaaaan…) in what Montero offers up. The man also known as Bjenny to his mum and his constituency could actually be better known to some for his cartoonery than his music, although Tokin’ The Night Away (Chapter Music) might alter that balance a bit. OK, with a title like that, how do you expect it to sound? Electronic stars sparkle and fall around as you fall into slumber watching the old Beatles clips on Rage, with occasional stumbles to the fridge to see if there’s any of the leftover vegetarian pide left. He’ll be on tour through Europe with no less than Mac DeMarco as you read this, but you think our boy will always be that little bit less self-conscious than the headliner.

Sometimes what appear completely disparate elements can make something quite individual – and quite good. Overcoats combine sweet almost-bluegrass country harmony vocals over cross-currenting electronic beds making for almost plaintive chaos that does get you in. An album part-produced by new soul maven Autre Ne Veut adds another angle to the resigned tone of I Don’t Believe In Us (Arts & Crafts/CreateControl) and its love probably gone. It somehow all sits right, and will sprawl across your local community radio stations in short order.

Getting the balance of putting your own spin on a classic while respecting both yourself and the work is a neat trick. Adding an element of handy self-promotion, the redoubtable Henry Wagons pays all due homage to the anniversary of Leonard Cohen moving to a higher plane of existence with a fine towering reading of Tower Of Song (ABC Music) which manages some of both Len’s gravitas and Henry’s animation to make something quite individual. That it can double as opening theme for Mr Wagons’ eponymous radio show is only a bonus.

Likewise, sometimes you can see some of the influences at play. Sunflower Bean is like listening and watching a history of various strands of indie echoes collapsing together to become the child of which you can be proud. I Was A Fool (Mom & Pop/Liberation) is one part The Sundays’ sweet and plaintive pop, if one of the boys was allowed to sing as well. Or maybe it’s The Go-Betweens, if they could have stayed more in tune – that’s not an insult to either. Almost unavoidably they’re from Brooklyn, naturally.

Already with the cred points high from a 2016 effort which made any number of ‘Year’s Best Album’ lists, particularly in the UK despite their very New York ways, Public Access TV come with mood perhaps not quite as pisstaking as something like our very own Flight Facilities, but certainly with some degree of tongue lodged in some degree of cheek as Metrotech (Cinematic/Red Essential) is more unquestionably whiteboy Prince-ish funk which they do in a perfectly self-aware manner.