With their Google-proof band name and an album cover adorned with cheese, Sydney’s Songs were always one of those bands where you had to do your own digging to find their music and then reap the rewards. Their second album shuffles away from the overt Flying Nun influences and finds the quartet messing about with a wilder vein of psychedelic music. This switch in sound can be partially attributed to half of the band being new (Talon drummer Ben James, Youth Group guitarist Cameron Emerson-Elliot), but the new album also benefits from the increased presence of Ela Stiles, also of Bushwalking.
There’s a wonderful looseness to the songs of Malabar, though they’re marked with booming, mantra-like choruses such as the droning repeat of the title of gritty opener I’m Alone When I’m With You and the “a fact’s a fact” chorus in the uplifting Boy/Girl. They complete a stunning three-song start to the album with the Tomorrow Never Knows psychedelia of Looking Without Seeing. The middle of the album then pulls back to simpler, more concise tracks, one celebrating good times, the other celebrating urban life. Lead vocalist Max Doyle then submits to more extensive compositions, with the gentle acoustic ballad Ringing Bells and a brooding, murky title track. Stiles does her best Patti Smith impression on the fiery Ever Since, before the cooing caress of the closing track. The good news is that Songs are still producing great songs; the even better news is that they now offer more variety and have delivered an album that tops their debut.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
Best Track: Looking Without Seeing
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One YO LA TENGO, The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night, THE BESNARD LAKES
In A Word: Album
