Album Review: Tumbleweed - Sounds From The Other Side

The hard-rocking boys from Wollongong are back and they haven't missed a step. When Tumbleweed got back together for live gigs a few years ago, I'm sure there were dudes in their 30s and 40s all over Australia who couldn't wait to relive their teenage years and 20s of beer, bongs and maybe even the odd beer bong. Well, now that experience is available anytime, anywhere, with Sounds From The Other Side, Tumbleweed's first long player of originals in over a decade.

Sounds From The Other Side isn't about reinventing the wheel, but it never sounds like a lazy rehash of the good old days either. Night Owl is all denim and leather swagger, which turns into an “ooh and aah”-infused chorus. A real stand-out, Dirty Little Secret sounds like the kind of song you'd need cranking on your car stereo if you were being chased down an outback highway by a rogue semi-trailer. Things go a little vintage with Drop In The Ocean, which owes a lot to Bowie's Heroes musically, thematically and lyrically. And Queen Of Voodoo is Tumbleweed singing about the kind of chick you want Tumbleweed to sing about – a bit of rough trade on the banks of the New Orleans everglades who knows how to party.

It's dirty; it's big muff guitars; it's the almost monotone yet somehow melodious vocals of Richie Lewis. Aaaah, Tumbleweed's Sounds From The Other Side is just like being back in the warm, loving embrace of 1995, and it couldn't feel more like home.