Melbourne Ska Orchestra - Sierra Kilo Alpha

Sierra Kilo Alpha is the Melbourne Ska Orchestra's second album. It was released in 2016, three years after their self-titled debut album.

To touch on recording quality... well it's a tough asking shepherding a plethora of barely-in-control musicians (which is what I love about their live gigs) into something coherent sounding. And largely they've done a good job, with all the instruments intelligible and well balanced. Minor quibble are that I wish the kick-drum had some more low-end weight to it, and the horn sounds in Escher and Vesper Ska strangely sound like some kind of Church Mode on a 1990s stereo amplifier.

Speaking of Escher, it works well as a funky bouncing opener, but it isn't at all memorable for me. Having said that, its pre-chorus is a highlight. Bombay Detective follows a similar recipe, but with a much nicer horn sound (good bite to the sax's, especially the baritone) and trading some reggae intricacy for a more phatter rocksteady groove. The result is a showcase of all the great abilities and tricks of the orchestra.

Sans Humanite is a fun little tale of the three vocalists ribbing each other. The horn sound isn't exactly to my liking, but that pales into insignificance given the infectious melody being featured. The icing on the cake is the contrast between the mento-esque verses and the bouncing ska chorus.

The screaming horns and fat groove are a wonderful combination in Funkchunk. It adds nicely to the variety of the album, and the punchy big-band funk/rocksteady is very enjoyable in its own right.

Next up is probably my favourite song on the album, even though it doesn't really play to the band's strengths. Nothing in the Well features brilliantly poignant lyrics (like The Slackers' Prophet) and a great infectious chorus. The arrangement is quite restrained and simple rocksteady, which leaves much of the band sitting around under-utilised. But this restraint and simplicity allows the important bits to cut through, resulting in a wonderful song.

On the other hand, Satellite shows the band at their chaotic best, with vocal/instrumental cameos jumping in and out. It can sometimes feel disjointed (not a problem during the live shows), but I completely dig the barely-controlled madness.

Special Thing features a nicely Get Smart feel, with cool percussion parts and a nice rocksteady groove. Then Vespa Ska takes us into a very traditional 2-tone style, to finish with some fun, bouncy goodness.

Lastly, the album comes with a pair of 3D glasses, which is ridiculous and fantastic.

Favourite songs

Sans Humanite, Bombay Detective, Nothing in the Well, Slyboots, Special Thing, Satellite, Vespa Ska

I diggit?

This album has a huge handicap in that listening to the album makes me really want to see them live again... unfortunately even the world's best recording can't compare to that wonderfully mad experience of their live shows.

That's probably the reason for this CD spending spent most of its life sitting on my shelf unloved, but in revisiting it for this review I actually enjoyed it far more than I expected to. So I would definitely recommend it as one of the finest examples in the (very niche) genre of orchestral ska.

Electric Six - Fire

This is Electric Six's debut album, which was released in 2003.

Does anyone remember the flash-in-the-pan single Gay Bar? A bit of a novelty song, its lyrics provided an intellectual exploration of activities one could undertake at a queer drinking establishment:

Let's start a war,
Start a nuclear war.
At the gay bar, gay bar.

and

I've got something to put in you...
At the gay bar, gay bar.

So a while back I purchased this album, put it on the shelf and forgot about it.

The album covers quite a range of the rock landscape, and the recording style is also varied to a surprising degree. On some songs, the bass sounds are lacking and a bit muddy. However everything else is consistently praiseworthy throughout the album: a good mix of vocals, guitars, bass and percussion, all sounding nice.

Dance Commander kicks things off with solid yet unmemorable instrumentation, but is elevated to greatness by wonderfully irreverent lyrics. Now that they're warmed up, Electric Demons in Love adds an infectious groove to the mix, with fantastic results. I would probably be saying similar about Naked Pictures (of Your Mother), however I'm a bit prudish and find the song's title quite off-putting.

As an example of the very different recording styles mentioned earlier, Danger! High Voltage drops some deep thumping bass. And the cherry on top is lyrics such as "Fire in the... Taco Bell". And a sax solo!!

The next song, <breaks the 4th wall> errr, actually, I can't be bothered trying to write words any more, I just wanna enjoy these tunes instead. To wrap things up, special mentions go to 

• Improper Dancing for its great disco-rock groove, fantastic title, non-sequitur bridge and the highly amusing "Stop. Continue." instructions.
• I'm the Bomb for its disco groove cranked up to eleven (especially the tease of the chorus in the intro) and contrast of the verses.
• Synthesizer for its infectious groove (somehow reminding me of the film Napoleon Dynamite) and the profound universal truth of its lyrics.

Favourite songs

Dance Commander, Electric Demons in Love, Danger! High Voltage, I Invented the Night, Gay Bar, Vengeance and Fashion, I'm the Bomb, Synthesizer

I diggit?

This album sits somewhere between early Franz Ferdinand and The Hives. In other words, perfection.

Superjesus - Rock Music

Rock Music is The Superjesus' third album. It was released in 2003, three years after Jet Age.

... And therein lies a strange situation for me. Jet Age is one of my all-time favourite albums, however it feels quite unrelated to the rest of the band's discography. I find Jet Age more sophisticated than Rock Music, so it's quite strange to realise that Rock Music is actually the later album.

To start with the audio quality, some songs use a lot of stereo effects to position instruments very wide. This works a treat on speakers, but on headphones it can leave the centre of the image feeling a bit empty. Perhaps a related issue is that the bass guitar is often hollow sounding and indistinct. On the bright side, the vocals sound wonderful- crisp and delicate but also with a nicely husky edge, and great use of chorus effects.

I suppose that Shudder fulfils its role as an opener, but I find it a bit wall-of-noise. The style of it is similar to Magic Dirt (plus probably a thousand other late-grunge bands with male vocalists, but unfortunately my mind pigeonholes songs based on the number of chromosomes for the lead singer).

On the other hand, Stick Together is a highlight thanks to its wonderfully catchy chorus. Simple and formulaic, but highly enjoyable pop-rock. And then Let it Go strikes a wonderful middle ground between the styles of the aforementioned, thanks to heavier verses punctuated by a gloriously infectious chorus. I was going to complain about the distorted vocal effect used in verses, although maybe it makes the clean vocals in the chorus more enjoyable by contrast.

Over & Out and Bodies for Breaking are further evidence for a "no chorus, no care" theory, with the former having a great chorus and therefore being highly enjoyable. Bodies for Breaking does not and is not. Unfortunately the drums are quite distorted... another victim of the noughties "loudness war", dammit.

Whinge time... Medication is generic riff-rock with uninspiring vocals and a chorus somehow lacking sparkle. The opening line of Closer strongly reminded me of a hit sung by a Scottish lady: "And if it makes..." ... you happy, perhaps? (i.e. Garbage). Unfortunately this song certainly does not. It is a collection of solid musical elements, shoehorned together very awkwardly.

To end on a positive note, These Dreams is a wonderful exception to the "no chorus no care" theory. I really dig its industrial/sparse mood. Also bringing the variety is Manic which has a nice build-up and use of minor chords in the pre-chorus. It's a good change of pace in the middle of the album, and quite enjoyable in its own right.

 

Favourite songs

Stick Together, Let it Go, These Dreams, Over & Out, Manic

I diggit?

My expectations were quite low for this album, but it turns out to have grown on me. Some people might look down on the "don't bore us, get to the chorus" approach (thanks, Roxette!), but I enjoyed 50% of this album, so that's a pass in my book.

Superjesus - Love and Violence

This EP was released in 2016 and marked Superjesus' return from hiatus following the 2003 release of the Rock Music album.

Come back To Me jumps straight into a rock-solid groove that conjures up images of industrial machines on a grand scale. Then, provided you turn a blind ear to the recording quality faults, the chorus is a great head-banging effort. At first I noticed that it's slower than Superjesus' earlier efforts, but then are there actually any bands that have got faster as they've gotten older??

The final track is a live version of Come Back to Me which is very nice sounding for a live recording (with a minor blemish of some distortion in the tom toms). I really enjoy the slight Scottish lilt of the singer's vocals, and the rawer live version brings it out wonderfully. Therefore I think the live recording actually sounds better than the studio one.

On the other hand, Setting Sun is a dog's breakfast of recording quality. If you can get past this, the pre-chorus and chorus are full of inspirational head-banging goodness. Then, St Peters Lane? No thanks, the lyrics don't resonate at all for me.

All of the stars are perfectly aligned for Love and Violence and the tempo is slightly faster. It all adds up to... you guessed it... great head-banging times.

"Throoooowwwww myseeeeeelf into the sea" is the perfect way to start a great headbanging chorus, let alone the master-stroke of launching straight into this as the song's opening gambit (rather than easing in via a chorus etc). Add in swirling guitars and great lyrical imagery throughout the song, and the result is wall-to-wall brilliance. And that, in a nutshell, is Sea Song.

Audio quality rant

Hmmm, this is going to get ugly... The vocals are over-processed to the point of sounding plasticky, there's a grating harshness to the high-pitched sounds, and there's lots of distortion on the drums and vocals (Setting Sun is terrible for this). Also the tonal balance varies greatly between songs, as if each song was mastered by a different person.

Clutching straws to find a bright side within this dogs breakfast, there's great spaciousness and good balance between the vocals and instruments. But when the nicest sounding song on the disc is a live recording, that's a poor reflection on all of the other songs.

 

Favourite songs

Come Back to Me, Love and Violence, Sea Song, Come Back to Me (live)

 

I diggit? 

Yes. I was already a huge Superjesus fan, and really enjoy this new direction for the band.

The Living End - Shift

Shift is The Living End's seventh album. It was released in 2016, five years after The Ending Is Just The Beginning Repeating.

Self-indulgent rant incoming: I am unashamedly a massive fan of The Living End. But... if I may quote the Screaming Jets... it's the line "the ones who love you always hurt you the most" that comes to mind here. I have a theory that diehard fans of a band are overly polarised in their judgement of individual songs or albums. By this I mean that if a TLE song crosses the bar of being a decent listen, then I'll proclaim it to be the greatest thing since sliced bread; yet if it only gives me a lukewarm reaction then I'll be dismissing it as utterly terrible. Shift is quite a mix of these two situation so let's see how this pans out...

A few songs would be completely at home on Roll On, such as Death, Up the Junction and One Step. The latter feels too staccato and disjointed, but I guess it does it's job as a quick opening track. Up The Junction hits the nail on the head with brilliantly catchy pub-rock instrumentals, but for me is ruined by the cliched lyrics. Death is a bit disjointed and the chorus is somehow lacking in catchiness, but all of these niggles are forgiven when it comes time for its instrumental bridge, which rocks out brilliantly.

Speaking of previous TLE albums, Monkey's catchy pop fun would fit in seamlessly on State of Emergency. And Life As We Know It is solid riff-rock as per White Noise, although it's not particularly memorable and the "megaphone distortion" effect on the lead vocals is a real turn-off for me.

This distortion afflicts a few songs on this album, which is a shame since the overall recording quality is really good. The bottom end of kick-drum and double-bass have nice clean meat to them (as much as I'd dig some slappy double-bass goodness, it would probably be out of place here), the guitars are crisp with some nice stereo effects and the cymbals are sweet. Keep On Running (which strangely has a harshness to the cymbals) is a highlight for its great use of stereo guitar effects and bonus points for the wonderful blending of the strings.

Several songs remind me of post-1980s U2, which is not a good thing. The worst of them is Wire, particularly the chorus. It's a similar story for With Enemies Like That, which consists of beautiful instruments undermined by a tacked-on chorus and cliched lyrics (in particular, the line "turn on the 8 track, play it 'round again" is somehow a huge let-down for me). Keep On Running is the other way around, where the chorus is a highlight but the verses sometimes leave me cold. The strings are a wonderful addition to the song here. Overall, somehow Keep On Running is a song that on one listen will feel generic and contrived, but another time I will find it utterly inspiring.

Staring Down the Barrel gets off to a great start with the intro (the vocals sound wonderful here), but somehow I find the chorus lacks sparkle. The rest of the song gives off a nice late-80s rock vibe (Bruce Springsteen perhaps?) with the bridge in particular being a wonderful highlight.

So far, most of the praise here has been accompanied by a qualifier. None are needed for Coma, I am very pleased to report. The song has a wonderful sparseness to it, especially the Roxanne-esque guitar. Oh, and the minimalist chorus is a delight. The bridge is quite weird and out of place, but I'm always a fan of that! In a strange back-flip for me, normally I dislike it when songs fade out as an ending, but here I think the refrain disappearing into the distance would have worked a treat. Regardless, Coma is a highlight of the album and the song that immediately comes to mind when I think of Shift.

Favourite songs

Monkey, Coma

I diggit?

After much careful consideration, the verdict I have reached is "meh".