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MUSIC REVIEWS

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FEATURE ARTIST

Luca Brasi The World Don't Owe You Anything Let’s face it: Tasmania has underachieved in the world of rock – the state has failed to provide any chart-topping bands. But Luca Brasi are rightly seen as the kings of the Tassie scene. Their new album opens with the aptly titled The Entry Ramp , which provides a power-packed introduction to a record filled with anthemic punk pop-rock. Named after Don Corleone’s enforcer in The Godfather , Luca Brasi are all muscle and no flab – the songs here are tight and concise, with the longest track clocking in at 4:07. A standout is Losin’, a song about “how things change”. But though this is Luca Brasi’s sixth studio album, they still possess glorious youthful energy – and the album ends with A Place to Begin . Yep, there’s a lot of life left in Luca Brasi, and here’s hoping that more Tassie acts follow their lead. (Cooking Vinyl) Jeff Jenkins

The Paper Kites At the Roadhouse

Genesis Owusu STRUGGLER You can’t keep La Cucaracha down. The sophomore record from Ghanaian-Australian artist Kofi Owusu-Ansah (AKA Genesis

The Paper Kites dream big. The Melbourne band’s sixth album is a sprawling affair: double vinyl, 16 tracks. The opening cut, Midnight Moon , sets the scene: “Take me down to that roadhouse,” Sam Bentley sings, a reference to the old building in Victoria's Campbells Creek which the five-piece converted into an American-style roadhouse to make the record. It’s a place you’d want to stay – warm and inviting, and the pace is unhurried. One song title perfectly describes the mood: Rolling on Easy . Bentley’s vocals effortlessly merge with the music, and it’s not until the ninth track, June’s Stolen Car, that the guitars start cranking. File next to your Ryan Adams records – this is quality Americana – and there’s a beautifully produced coffee table book to accompany the album. (Sony) Jeff Jenkins

Owusu) pedals its many legs relentlessly, boiling with lysergic energy – but Owusu’s ideas always have one foot in the soil of lived experience: depression, racism, prejudice. No surprise that STRUGGLER –

the follow-up to the artist’s hugely decorated debut Smiling with No Teeth (2021) – was inspired by two of the greatest works of absurdist fiction out: Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Kafka’s Metamorphosis . Across this bucket of punk-funk hip-hop, Owusu embraces his insectile alter-ego as a symbol of grotty, dogged resilience while contemplating life’s potholes, trying to make sense of the world around him. The “roach” appears somewhere in nearly every song, as if it’s scuttling through the rooms of this sonic motel and pausing long enough to take stock before the track’s tail-end is chopped and dropped off a cliff. But the struggle breeds empowerment – “I don’t plan to be a martyr for nothing,” he hawks on Stay Blessed – and he doesn’t expect salvation from any corner of the field except his own. Stodgy electro basslines hopscotch with breakbeats and electric guitar flourishes, while Owusu’s sprechstimme-rap and sunlit singing voice evoke André 3000. Elsewhere, See Ya There is a brilliant lounge-soul ballad .Paak could’ve penned, and That’s Life (A Swamp) is a squidgy groove with an irresistible yacht-jazz about-face in the middle that saunters harder than anything we’ve heard this year. Imaginative, unrelenting, glorious stuff. (Ourness) ZKR

FEATURE ARTIST

Gretta Ziller All These Walls Another brick in the wall Gretta Ziller is not; the Melbourne folk-rock artist's third album is all about the literal and metaphorical obstructions she found around her during the pandemic era. It's an elegantly constructed record which opens tenderly, meandering like a leaf on a river with lazy lapsteel kissing her melodies. The knots pick up when Ain't Even Your Lover delivers a galloping HAIM-like vocal and a cheeky horn line hoppin' right out of the azure sky. The title track recalls '90s femme-grunge, while Ziller's vocal grounds it with precision. Brass blooms in the exuberant St Louis ; the grinding, soulful Bones warps up into a calamity of noise; and the album closes out with a pair of love songs – Golden Days and Who Knows – which buffet the listener gently back to the riverbed. Sway the day away with Gretta. (ABC) Bec Summer

The Cat Empire Where the Angels Fall

Thy Art Is Murder Godlike Extremity – and the pursuit of that quality through art – originates from a primal state

Appropriately, this band has nine lives, and The Cat Empire’s ninth studio album represents a new beginning. Twenty years after the band’s debut record, Felix Riebl and Ollie McGill are the only original members, having rebuilt the Empire with a new group of players. It’s a lot of change for the long-term fans, but the resultant record is a crowd-pleaser that’s easy to embrace. As one title states: Old Dog, New Trick . Very few Australian acts are working with such a broad palette, and The Cat Empire bring the colours to life. One song is called Rock ’n’ Roll , and though it’s not quite rock ’n’ roll in the conventional sense, it still rocks. “One more for the road,” Riebl sings in the thrilling Owl . It’s the highlight of a record that’s a joy from start to finish. (Diggers Factory) Jeff Jenkins

of visceral expression. Thy Art Is Murder live inside this uncompromising realm of creativity, entrenching themselves deeper with each release. On Godlike , the Sydney five-piece continue their unwavering descent, offering up a claustrophobic and cerebral

nightmare that will both ensnare and decimate your ears. Yet in the face of these hostile soundscapes, it's the unflinching mirror Godlike holds up to us, humanity, which gives the most lasting impression. A stampede of drums announces Destroyer of Dreams , unleashing the record's first torrent of sonic carnage; lead single Join Me in Armageddon rains down a torrential maelstrom in the story of our path to nuclear winter; Greek mythology's Keres inspires the song bearing this same title, serving a powerful indictment of our inherent habit to exploit the misfortunes of others. Fleeting interlude Everything Unwanted lulls us into a false sense of reprieve before erupting into a showcase of CJ McMahon’s vocals as its centrepiece beside an expansive, almost orchestral-scaled arrangement. There's also the fusion of mechanical, industrial guitar tones ( Lesson in Pain and Corrosion ), entwined with eerie, otherworldly atmospherics ( Bermuda ). On Godlike, Thy Art expertly balance themes of humanity's perpetual cycles of violence, with the profound sense of isolation that individuals existing within that very same world will experience. The result is enthralling, and equally harrowing. (Human Warfare) Alex Burgess

80 SEPTEMBER 2023

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