It’s hard to imagine a more at odds title to the second Jimmy Tait record. The bold and gripping vision we’re presented with here is a long fucking way from golden. Instead, the band – fronted by Sara Retallick and featuring members of The Gin Club, The Wintership and The Orphanage – present a haunting, almost funereal collection of reverb-tinged songs, which not so much explore but inhabit the weighty themes of loss, alienation and existential despair. Named in homage to Retallick’s late grandfather, the band possess many hallmarks of the Australian Gothic, their songs mired in the ghostly gums and arid plains of Victoria’s far north-east (the album was recorded in a farmhouse in the small country town of Yalca). Not to mention the melancholy that hangs over just about every note.
Opener, What Is This For? begins with the foreboding hum of a church organ, before descending into a funeral march in slow-motion. Slow is the keyword here. And sparsity. Infinitely assured, the band move at their own pace, unwilling to hurry or crowd their compositions with excess instrumentation. As such, there’s a real space to the material. Chords linger. Percussive strikes land way back at the end of bars. Yet instead of diminishing the drama, the band’s practiced restraint only ramps it up.
Current single All My Friends is as brilliant as it is bruised. “All my friends are sitting on the fence/They’ll never rush to my defence”, laments Retallick, the sadness in her voice palpable as the music goes at an icy canter beside her. Eyes, Give It Back To Me and the title track fire the middle of the album with a sense of urgency. Eyes, in particular, with its twangy lead guitar riff – all bends and distorted sustain – bursts from the pack, teeth bared into the forest night. Before long, however, Retallick steers the band back into mellower waters – without sacrificing an iota of intensity – closing the album with the plaintive Rain and No Reason. One of the best local releases of the year without doubt.
BY WAYNE MARSHALL
Best Track: All My Friends
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: PJ HARVEY, ADALITA, THE TRIFFIDS
In A Word: Melancholic
