Let’s get one thing straight: The Pretty Little’s make rock music. The type of rock music that makes you want to load your ’97 Commodore with a slab of Melbourne tinnies and hot-foot it over to Fitzroy Park to shotgun them with a bunch of mates. This isn’t the type of album that will soundtrack your life, but under the right circumstances, it shines. When the time is right and you’re leaving the office with one fist in the air as Gospel plays in your headphones, that’swhenyou’ll get it.
Producer Neil Gray (Vasco Era) has done an excellent job of capturing the band’s raw, beer soaked energy. I can almost feel the elbow of a loose armed punter connect with my upper lip on the anthemic Tegan Victoria. The Pretty Littles owe a lot to the quiet/ loud structure of early 2000’s rock, but beneath their obvious influences is a surprisingly melodic core. Ava jams itself out into an unexpectedly musical coda, while Man Baby sounds like Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams if it was half-cut at a house party somewhere on the North side of the river. Arguably the most memorable song on the album, the interplay between lead singer Jack Parsons and the beautifully voiced Alice Hardie-Grant is a highlight. When the harmonies come together as the track hits a joyous peak, it’s hard not to get swept away in the good vibes.
The idiosyncratically Australian lyrics could be fairly divisive. When the layers of fuzz are stripped back, they don’t always translate to a singer/songwriter setting. On Local Footy, the opening line, “He cracks another tin and flicks a ciggy in the bin,” comes off a bit clunky. However, The Pretty Littles aren’t aiming for a Pulitzer Prize. Ultimately, Gospel is like any great night out – a raucous good time that leaves you yearning for the next instalment.
BY JAMES DI FABRIZIO
