Frankenbok: Greet It.

Frankenbok play Overcranked at the QUT Club, Gardens Point on Saturday.

Frankenbok vocalist Adam is just back from a singing lesson. “You can never stop learning,” he affirms. Taking care of that voice is rightly a top priority at the moment, with the Melbourne act battling their way to the top of the Aussie metal pile, and currently working hard on their second long player. Significant progress has already been made, with band well and truly into the writing process.

“I’d like to think Loopholes was a step up from Greetings, and this recording is going to be a step up from Loopholes. We’re really just trying to hone our craft as songwriters. I don’t mean more commercial, just songs that flow and are more memorable. We’re being a bit more nit picky this time. We don’t want to throw a whole bunch of things together just for the sake of having a song. I’m more into this stuff than what we’ve done in the past.”

“We’ve only got about five shows left, and then we’re taking time off to put things together. We’ve played so much that it’s kind of affected our writing. I think we sometimes play a bit too much when we get offered shows. People email and say ‘can you play at my birthday party?’ and we’ll do it,” he laughs. “I love getting in the van and heading out for a gig, but we’ve been so focused on being a good live band that writing songs suffered a little bit.”

Earlier this year saw the re-release of their debut album Greetings & Salutations, originally put out on the quiet by Superheist guitarist DW Norton through his Faultline label. Following the exposure Frankenbok garnered with their snazzy cover of Madison Avenue’s Don’t Call Me Baby from the Loopholes & Great Excuses EP, Greetings has been reissued complete with a bonus disc of live tracks.

“We just wanted people to know it was out there,” Adam explains. “Just to tie in the gap between Loopholes and the new album that we’re writing at the moment. It was still available, but it was very hard to find. We’d sell them at gigs, and you could order it, but if you went to F looking for Frankenbok it wasn’t there. You could order it, but most people would just grab something else that was there instead. I’m like that. I’m very impatient.”