Album Review: HTRK - Psychic 9-5 Club

Melbourne hate rockers HTRK have more history than their discography will ever imply. Psychic 9-5 Club is the band's first proper full-length as a duo following the death of founding bass player Sean Stewart.

The stark electronic minimalism of opener Give it Up recalls the classic krautrock grooves of early Can or Neu and marks what is a further turn away from the post-punk, Birthday Party-esque sounds the band channelled in their earliest days. Jonnine Standish's misery-dreamy vocals still enchant and entice throughout the record, and Nigel Yang's production work is easily the group's most focused and mature yet.

While the sound may be a departure, the aesthetic and conceptual themes remain; isolation, late nights and the beauty in loneliness are scattered liberally through the album's length.

Suitably, the band's trademark throbbing bass lines are notably absent, with the emptiness left behind by Stewart felt throughout, be it in the insular and at times claustrophobic lyrics or in the newly confident electronic sounds on the album – which feel even more remote and far away than on previous records, where an easy bass hook could be lent on in a grasp at familiarity.

In spite of this, the album is no crushing dirge of depression – in its own way, it's oddly hopeful. This is the sound of a band who've picked up the pieces and found a new, exciting beast in their hands. HTRK remain the brilliant and confrontational group they've always been, they're just navigating a strange new world.