Confronted with yet another example of modern society’s obsession with cleanliness and hygiene, an old bloke once offered his own observations, tinged with a mixture of nostalgia and contemporary critique: “My mum used to say that there were two kinds of dirt: clean dirt, and dirty dirt. And you always knew which was which.” Which, really, doesn’t help much.
Dirt Farmer play a brand of whimsical slacker rock’n’roll that’s endearing, and not really that dirty, at least in the classic sense of that term. Dirt Farmer’s new EP, Delilah Lightning, has everything you want in a band: there’s enough adolescent-life-and-love pop sensibility in She Shakes to bring Brian Wilson to the beach party; All I Know is all bobby socks, loafers and shrugged shoulders to recreate the best parts of ’50s rock’n’roll in a contemporary setting. Double Down skips down south of the Antipodean equivalent of the Mason-Dixon line (the Albury-Wodonga line?) jumps on a freight train and rides off into the night.
The title track is a vision of beauty, with a guitar hook to die for; if this isn’t just the best pop track to appear this year, then it’s probably not worth looking for a worthy competitor. And then there’s New Mexico, possibly the closest thing to dirt on the entire record, and packed full of southern rock-meets-northern Victorian rock goodness. The EP finishes, and it’s all melodic smiles and rock’n’roll goodness. You don’t get much better than this.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Best Track: New Mexico
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: TWERPS, DICK DIVER
In A Word: Clean
