How does their fourth album stack up?
When I heard the revelation that Eddy Current Suppression Ring were set to release a new album in 2019, I ran my shopping trolley into a shelf full of custard at Barkly Square Woolies. After sounding the next chapter of their hiatus following a triumphant performance at Golden Plains in 2016, the most recent murmur from the mischievous troupe was in November 2018 when frontman Brendan Huntley admitted, “We have been jamming” to Double J’s Zan Rowe.
Since then, nada, zilch, zero, nuthin’, naught. If you could compare them to a mammal, they were a polar bear a month into their winter hibernation with 60 days still on the clock. They were in deep and it seemed like they’d never come back.
But All In Good Time they say; right on the button. I’m not chasing idioms, though. Does the album live up to the irony of its title?
The record kicks off with its self-titled track, a throbbing garage-punk number that drools an indeterminate narrative. If anything, it’s ghastly – “All in good time/Peel, peel back your skin/peel back your skin/step on in/cos you’re turning yourself/yes you’re turning yourself inside out.”
Maybe that’s the state of anticipation punters are in as they await the album reveal this Friday.
From there, it’s a deliverance of vitality, bash, crash and critical commentary. ‘Our Quiet Whisper’ juts away without surmounting to any raucousness, yet its narrative is resounding – “Action speaks louder than any single figure of speech/I begun to ramble/I begun to rant/our quiet whisper has become a chant.”
To a degree, it’s the perfect single – a teaser that doesn’t give too much away but lures you in just enough to the pandemonium inside.
‘Our Quiet Whisper’ paves way for album standout ‘Voices’. The song mirrors a mental crusade. As the track unfurls, the hallucinations strengthen – “Like an interloper walking around in your head/like a cold wind, blowing/you never really know if it’s coming or going” – before it all erupts. This is the garage anthem of 2019.
‘Reoccurring Dream’ is like the backend of the ‘Voices’ nightmare and when we arrive at ‘Future Self’, Huntley has truly lost it. A song that explores how one can set themselves up for future disaster, it reaches a point where Huntley can’t take it anymore and as Young lets his electric launch, Huntley’s unravelling laughter is like a psychotic Joaquin Phoenix.
‘Human Race’ tells the tale of groundhog society while ‘Like A Comet’ is a stomping track that sounds like something from a UV Race record.
The album culminates in ‘Modern Man’, an encapsulation of everything that has come before it. It’s a pulsing marathon of an ignorant gentleman; one that fails to see and understand. It’s Mikey and Brendan at their best, it’s oh so good.
All In Good Time is no Primary Colours but it’s Eddy Current longer and more unnerving than ever before. It’s great. Listen to it.
