Album Review: Blacklevel Embassy - New Veteran

It feels like an age since Melbourne malcontents Blacklevel Embassy released their last album (2008's Asp), yet time hasn't tempered them. If anything, third LP New Veteran is more angular than ever, alternating breakneck time signature shifts with unpredictable spikes of visceral venom and taut precision. And whilst the trio have always courted comparisons to the likes of The Jesus Lizard and Future Of The Left, such influences are both evident and incidental, as they go about crafting some of the most addictively melodic face-kickers seen this year.

Starting with the death march of the title track, the band show that some things have changed, especially the channelling of Adam Cooper's singing voice into the mix. Old Revolt swings in another direction, all feedback before Brett O'Reilly's distinctive bassline bludgeons its way through, with the plaintive line “Rock'n'roll has been and gone” proving to be both ominous and acerbic. In fact, it's this innate humour (albeit cryptic to the point of being indecipherable, and pitch black to boot) that is more evident this time around. The brooding crawl of Viking Tattoo, the uneasy discord of Tony and the unhinged brutality of You Should Build Yourself A Deck are underpinned by lyrics that, whilst delivered with menace, intimate more humorous tales, and the unbridled quirk of Weng Weng Is A Secret Agent is the closest they've come to Andy Falkous' highly literate yet off-kilter wordplay.

Yet this is just another instrument of torture in what's a relentless iron maiden of taut aggression. By the time fierce closer I Keep Making Tiny Men abruptly cuts out, though, the temptation to undergo the flagellation again is nigh on irresistible.