New Descendents Proves There's No Punk Like An Old Punk

It’s one of the eternal calls of pop music. “We like your old stuff better than your new stuff”. It’s an audience craving the familiar, which is fair enough. But can be anathema to any artist who’s still trying to challenge themselves, and stretch their creativity. So, do you keep putting same record out to hold your audience, or recast yourself and hope they come along with your development?

At one end of those options, there was/is a band called Seekae. Which started out not even needing words at all. But then Alex Cameron gave them a voice, and now has a craft of his own, under his name alone. The synth and textures have fallen back to minimal, skeletal even. The erratic pulse of something like Suicide the obvious reference point. It’s Cameron himself who now provides the drama – perhaps even melodrama. Take Care Of Business (Secretly Canadian/Inertia) has him being almost deliberately awkward, and similarly almost daring the Nick Cave comparisons. Go past the visual and just listen, and it can worm in on its own merits.  But will it carry the old audience, or try and find an entirely new one? 

Now, answer truthfully: have you ever actually listened repeatedly to any Iggy Pop album made since the days of his Bowie mentoring? Sure, you’ll know songs: Rage’s Real Wild Child, Candy, Loco Mosquito, I’m Bored – and that one probably just from that so-often-replayed near-legendary Countdown appearance – but really, do you ever sit down and listen to American Caesar, Beat ‘Em Up, or Naughty Little Doggie all the way through? Didn’t think so. The Josh Homme collaboration has perhaps got some of a newer generation curious about his place in history, but more you just look on bemused by the odd spectacle of an elderly man taking his shirt off, writhing disturbingly, and basically being the guy you hope doesn’t sit next you on the bus. That said, the visuals to go with the otherwise paint-by-numbers American Valhalla (Loma Vista/Caroline) are compelling, and provoking – with Pop’s “Nothing but my name…” spoken word coda perhaps the most self-aware thing he’s said in thirty years.

Then again, sometimes there’s no punk like an old punk. It’s a dozen years since Descendents did something ‘new’. This has been a long wait for those who tattooed the band’s square-eyed logo on themselves last century. This is Victim Of Me (Epitaph). It goes past fast - both in tempo, and the fact it last for one minute and thirty-seven seconds. This either suggests they’ve run of puff playing that quick, or said all they needed to in that timeframe. Either of those excuses is fine.

And, of course, there’s no punk like a young punk. Good Boy are from Brisbane, they have Mikey Young – you know, of Eddy Current from that last generational round of punkish noise we needed to have – doing the mixing and mastering, and in the fine traditions keep their chin up while simultaneously being punched in the face. Poverty Line (Habit) is all about being there on it. It is simple, it is real. And if you don’t believe, I’ll throw in my favourite factoid learnt during this interminable election campaign: a Member of Parliament’s ‘living away from home allowance’ when they’re ‘working’ in Canberra is $273 a day. Newstart allowance for a single adult is $263.80 a week. That’s ‘a week’. This has nothing – and yet everything – to do with what they’re yelling about.

A band that has moved, sometimes seismically, and remained true to themselves and the angsty  artistic vision of Finn Andrews, The Veils are special. And may well get some wider notice in coming times, as Mr Andrews is one of those artists slated to appear in the new remake and remodel of Twin Peaks. There’s been a David Lynchian discomfort in some of what they’ve done before, but Axolotl (Nettwerk/Footstomp) fits the new blueprint, from the title alone. The other wildcard element is a new edge given the music through collaboration with Run The Jewels’ El-P – which seems an unlikely mix at first, but actually makes more sense as you think about it.

Not sure if it was just listening to it in the same proximity, but some of Angel Olsen’s new work would probably fit on the Twin Peaks soundtrack as well or possibly a diet with Lana Del Rey. Intern (Jagjaguwar) comes on beds of pillowy synths, with just a feeling of last century about them. It is drifting, haunting, but again with that feeling on unease to it. But bringing it up to date and somewhat of a cinematic feel, this is not merely the clip of the sing, but a ‘trailer’ for what follows. ‘Trailer’ being double-speak for a commercial. For something that doesn’t seem really concerned with commerciality. The information age can be so confusing.

There are few more worrying words in popular music than ‘concept album’.  But the intelligent theatricality of what Bat For Lashes do might just get away with it. Although The Bride’s central conceit of a woman widowed on her wedding day could be an excuse for excess. That Natasha Khan can often have her band guise mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Bush (K.), Harvey (PJ), and Bjork (er, G.?) means she might just get away with it. Joe’s Dream (Parlophone) is ‘performance’, as befits the material. It’s the restraint of a character merely holding it together rather than coping, and makes you interested as to how the whole enterprise may hold up.

Of course, few things match the inherent drama of table tennis. Go with me on this. As the central motif of City Calm Down’s Border On Control (I Oh You) where the eternal yin and yang of the ping and pong maybe lightens Jack Bourke’s sonorous tones, with the insistent synths giving it a touch of The National as a reference point – although they’ll probably hate hearing that again. Oh well, that’s a paddlin’. But overall, this will build this band’s status, as well it should.