Rolling Blackouts Coastal FeverAh, to be young, living in Melbourne, and stuck behind one of the pillars at the Corner Hotel Bandroom. What a classic Victorian evening. Tonight's band is Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever (try saying that three times fast), and they've brought a very sensible crowd of crossed-armed nodders with them. But hey, it's a jangle pop band on a Sunday night in Richmond, so what did you expect? A wall of death?
Comparisons to '80s Flying Nun bands and IRS-era REM are warranted for this group but the influence of contemporary garage rock also lingers in the angular melodies of their songs. "There's a bit of Paul Kelly in these boys!" announces a dancing baby boomer. Yeah, him too.
Despite their early singles and full-length debut, Hope Downs, being championed by professional music nerds like Pitchfork, this reviewer found that those records would only inspire one to turn it off halfway through and chuck on Chronic Town for the billionth time rather than finishing the album.
Most of the time it's very serviceable "good vibes" music; a genre that's enjoyable and uplifting to some listeners but frustratingly straightforward for others. It's kind of like the little indie brother of yacht rock. We'll call it "paddle boat rock" for now. And while they're obsessed with filling every song with what Mark Kozelek refers to as "beer commercial lead guitar", Rolling Blackouts are still a band that's been attracting a lot of love and positive attention lately. So how do these tracks fare in the more in-your-face setting of a live gig?
Well, it's pretty much the same as their record, unfortunately. All the fellas in the band are clearly excellent musicians, but these tunes just bounce along a little too safely without any real sense of danger or dynamics. It doesn't help that the low-energy vocals from all three singers tend to always hover around the same comfortable octave too.
While songs like An Air Conditioned Man or The Hammer definitely hit harder onstage than they do on record, the flawlessly played, yet boringly scale-y guitar solos drag on for far too long whenever they pop in at the halfway point of a tune. And yet the crowd are loving every little moment of fretboard heroics they can get.
Do people still like long-ass guitar solos? Or are they just impressed by the dexterous ability of the guitarist? One thing is definitely for certain, these are not questions for 11pm on a Sunday night.
