STACK #244 February 2025

FEATURE MUSIC

MONTH?

BILLY’S PICK

CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL Green River UNIVERSAL

B etween 1968 and 1970, Creed ence Clearwater Revival were music’s greatest and most popular rock band, but that success didn’t happen overnight. The quartet – two guitarists, John Fogerty and his older brother Tom, drummer Doug Clifford and bass guitarist Stu Cook – formed in 1959 but didn’t achieve signif icant commercial success until a number of name changes that resulted in the first Creedence Clearwater Revival album seeing the light of day in 1968. By this time, John Fogerty was in total charge of proceedings: he wrote all the songs, arranged and produced them, while cementing his reputation as one of rock music’s greatest ever singers/lead guitarists.

This album was their third in just over a year, and their first to top the US charts, selling more than a million copies like its predecessors. It included two big hits, Bad Moon Rising and the title track. The only cover was the blues standard Night Time Is the Right Time , popularised in 1958 by Ray Charles. Fogerty’s almost hysterical vocal and superb controlled feedback guitar solo will forever blow my mind. In rock and roll, as we all know, democracy isn’t always a long-term arrangement. In 1970 Creedence Clearwater Revival acrimoniously broke up. But that’s another story.

PAUL THORN Life Is Just a Vapor ROCKET Before his music career,

SQUID Cowards INERTIA

Cowards is the third album for British post-punk band Squid. It’s a dark delight, with the band explaining

American roots rocker Paul Thorn was a boxer who once fought the great Roberto Durán. After being discovered

by The Police’s manager Miles Copeland, Thorn charted four albums in the Billboard 200 , and his resilience is on show here. “There are two kinds of people in the world,” he believes. “People that lay down and cry when faced with adversity and

that the record is “about evil – nine stories whose protagonists reckon with cults, charisma and apathy. Real and imagined characters wading into the dark ocean between right and wrong.” It’s quite a trip.

those that understand that you have to sometimes fight your way back up.”

THE RUMJACKS Dead Anthems ROCKET

THE WOMBATS Oh! The Ocean ROCKET

The Rumjacks started out in Sydney in 2008. They’re now based in Europe, where their Celtic punk sound is

Liverpool’s The Wombats are shooting for their first chart-topping album in Australia after four Top 5 entries in a row. Singer

Radio legend Billy Pinnell presents Billy Pinnell’s Musical Moments on YouTube.

much loved. The band’s breakthrough hit, An Irish Pub Song , is a perennial favourite on St Patrick’s Day. They’re keeping it real on their sixth album, decrying the fact that “on the radio a 21-year-old sings a song he didn’t write about his own true love”.

Matthew “Murph” Murphy explains that the record ponders some internal questions: “Why are my head and body disconnected all the time? Why am I incapable at times of seeing any form of beauty in the world or in others? Why do I expect the world to conform to my will?”

Coming in MARCH

THE CRUEL SEA Straight into the Sun (Mar 7) THE WIGGLES Wiggle Up, Giddy Up (Mar 7) MIA WRAY hi, it’s nice to meet me (Mar 14) OLD MERVS Old Mervs (Mar 21)

AUSSIE RELEASES

ZIGGY ALBERTS New Love ROCKET As the title suggests, New Love sounds like a new beginning for Ziggy Alberts. “I’m making change,” he sings in the title track, “of what was and who I was. I’m making space for new love.” Elsewhere on his sixth album, he admits he’s “always trying to be perfect” and he’s “been building my walls up high, avoiding things that I’ve been needing to say”. New Love is a rootsy pop record about second chances. And Ziggy Alberts is grasping his with both hands.

GEOFFREY O’CONNOR I Love What We Do DINOSAUR CITY/ ROCKET “Maybe I am a thing of the past,” Melbourne’s Geoffrey O’Connor ponders on his new solo album. And his dreamy, romantic pop does sound like it comes from a bygone era. But it’s easy to love what he does in 2025. This record has more love songs than an Air Supply album, with Let’s Make Love Feel Good Again, I’m So Lonely I Could Fall in Love, Late to Love, Love Takes What It Takes, and I Don’t Want to Be Loved . O’Connor – who is also a member of The Crayon Fields – has delivered a sweet treat. The perfect album for Valentine’s Day.

HANDS LIKE HOUSES Atmospherics CIVILIANS There have been some big changes in the Hands Like Houses world. Since their last album, singer Trenton Woodley has departed, replaced by Josh Raven from Perth band The Faim. “The idea for Atmospherics came during one of the low parts of our career,” explains bass player Joel Tyrrell. “Everything we knew had been swept away, and we didn’t really know if we would continue as a band.” But the Canberrra kings have bounced back with a big beast – 16 tracks, split into four volumes: Tropo(sphere), Strato(sphere), Meso(sphere) and Thermo(sphere).

ROYSTON NOELL Sunrise EP SONY

Royston Sagigi-Baira, who records under the name of Royston Noell, is a proud Thanakwith and Wagadagam man from Mapoon in Queensland. After winning Australian Idol in 2023, he released the single Invincible , written by Tones and I. Now comes the Sunrise EP, which Noell says is a “journey from darkness to light”. As he showed on Idol , Noell sings like an angel. And he funks things up on the summer banger Feeling Good , an uplifting anthem and a defiant middle finger to the doubters, who are “gonna wanna shut their trap”.

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