Album Review: Underground Lovers - Weekend

Of the multitude of band reformations over the past decade-and-a-half, only a handful has reaped any real rewards, playing incendiary shows and producing new material that easily rivalled anything they had produced in their youthful heyday. Weekend, the first album in over 12 years from Melbourne's Underground Lovers, should be put into this esteemed echelon.  

The original five-piece (augmented by Emma Bortignon's inclusion) have crafted ten tracks that cross the multiple genres the band has dabbled in over the course of their six-album discography, while offering a panache and verve that surpasses most of their modern day contemporaries. Opening with the elegiac Spaces, it's the rollicking swirl and swagger of Can For Now that first truly takes the breath away. Haunted (Acedia) is a beautiful elongated track that blossoms because of its resonant undertones and repetitive, warm flourishes, defying the vocals “And I wake up out of control” by willing going with the chaos; Dream To Me washes along over acoustic guitar yet just as lyrically powerful as anything the band have produced; Signs Of Weakness winks at Bobby Gillespie and Peter Hook before leaving them at the lights. It doesn't always glue together – the glitch-heavy Riding feels a decade late to the party – but even the misfires feel like a relief, especially when the euphoria embedded in the likes of St Germain and The Silhouette or the krautrock awe of swirling closer The Lie That Sets You Free are unleashed.

The production is pristine (thanks to veterans Wayne Connolly and Tim Whitten), which allows the band to step out beneath the shoegaze banner they've proudly waved in the past and truly embrace every excellently-paced element of the band's functionality. An excellent and welcome return.