Customers, let’s consider the balance of supply and demand – and the balance of quality and quantity. The old musical conventions of putting out an album every year-or-so and touring off the back of that product has pretty much gone, although something like King Gizzard’s five full-length works in a year was a little extreme – allowing they managed to keep the creative standards up. Another with a tiring work ethic, Jack White mixes it up more – various band guises, exhuming and producing lost artists, running a label with an increasingly diverse roster of rock, soul, country and now even rap acts - the diary’s pretty full. But here’s the next something under his own name, although that’s no guarantee of success either it seems – so many who went double-mad-with-cheese for his debut Blunderbuss, got a little confused by the perhaps even more scattergun and slapdash Lazaretto. But Connected By Love (Third Man) is one that comes fully formed, like he’s given it his full attention: storming guitars, himself yelping as old White Stripes enthusiasts would like, and a gospel choir seeping in to take you higher. And all is well with the world.
Obviously with far less sheer volume of content, our boy Vance Joy seems to have the knack of writing those big bright songs that earworm into your head and stay there, not annoying you until you hear them for the 4,372nd time soundtracking a package of cricket or footy highlights, challenged in ubiquity only by that now truly overworked Imagine Dragons thing with all its attendant thunder and lightning – godsake, it’s like a power-drill put to your temple. But anyway, attempting to put Riptide and/or Fire & The Flood back in my own head, Vance’s I’m Going Home (Liberation) is of his familiar template, although maybe a little more gentler and affectionate going with the romantic themes of his more recent Nation Of Two. Coming soon to a radio station or as musical backdrop to a bicycle race near you.
Although back from the hiatus, and that ‘interesting’ but not quite triumphant sidetrack of collaborating with '70s arty upstarts Sparks, Franz Ferdinand are maybe still settling back into being themselves. They went with the title track of Always Ascending as first preview sample of the new record, but it was maybe just a little busy, a little dense – like the friend you’ve haven’t seen in a couple of years trying to tell you everything that’s happened in the interim when you’ve only got time for the one coffee with them. Feel The Love Go (Domino) is more familiar. Kapranos still singing with that arched eyebrow, all world-weary but still hopefully romantic through his own cynicism. Even includes a perfect ‘80s style plastic sax solo to underline he knows more about this pop music thing than you do. But does he still?
If you want to see how to do the classicist pop thing, you need go no further than Charles Jenkins & The Zhivagos. The Melbourne institution – and I do mean that as a compliment, Chuck – added another terrific album to his canon last year, but due to circumstances beyond his control and simple bad luck, The Last Polaroid might have slipped through the cracks a bit, despite his own storied history (Mad Turks, the still-supreme Ice Cream Hands…) and a band that features – among other fine personages – Davey Lane, when his not in his major day jobs of being in The You Am I’s or being Davey Lane. Cartwheels (Silver Stamp) glistens as it runs across the verdant fields back to you, complete with one of those choruses that makes encourages a silly grin as you dance round to the kitchen to it. And a clip that includes cheap ninja effects – what more could you want?
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There’s certain bands that seem immune to change in fashion and remain fondly recalled – even if you can’t quite work out why. Turn of the century heroes Supergrass are in that category, maybe it was just the sheer goofy joy of what they did, and Pumping On Your Stereo is still a big happy thing whenever it gets one of its regular runs when put on the Saturday night list by a Rage guest. So, you’d imagine a lot of people will see the name Gaz Coombes and go “Oh yeah, that guy!”. The muttonchops are slightly heroic these days, but as a solo offering Deep Pockets (Caroline Australia) is identifiably him, although in its programmed and echoey way it’s maybe a little more ‘80s than ‘90s in its style and mood. It’s unarguably pop music though.
If Gaz is utterly identifiable of England of a certain time, Royal Chant are kind of eternally Australian. The slightly dorky guys stumbling around Port Macquarie skatepark in Back To Front (Dirty Mab) go well with the not-quite-slacker mood of the band, which comes with a whole bunch of good #Strayan self-deprecation as the guitar churn away as you almost accidentally stumble across the chorus. They’ll be the blokes making a racket in the corner of your local, the ones you’ll realise are actually pretty damn good at what they do when you get distracted from just watching the bubbles in your craft beer.
You get a somewhat shinier jangle from Zefereli. A couple of the abovementioned seem to suggest that twenty year cycle of musical fashionability still holds, as erstwhile guy from The Cairos Alistar Richardson and Clea offer We’re Gonna Get There Someday (Independent). It has ‘90s reverb for miles to sit with that above theory and is one of those small but perfectly formed things, doing all it needs to in a blink under two-and-a-half minutes, and leaving the necessary sweet aftertaste in your ears. OK, that kinda sounds messy - but you get the idea.
