Labels: Poison City Records
Review by: MH
This is a band from Perth, Australia, with a nice line in punked-up indie rock. They appear to have upset a lot of Grim Fandango gamers on Lastfm who are in uproar about them having used the name of the computer game and impacting the soundtrack’s Lastfm listening stats. The posts on that page make for an interesting read. I wonder if the gamers have realised yet that the band have even got a song on here called Grim Fandango – some of those folk are gonna be getting pretty irate at that news if they find out!
I saw Grim Fandango play here in Brisbane recently and they put on a decent live show with plenty of energy and their chunky rhythm section is well-suited to that environment. There is some resemblance to a 90s indie rock sound at times although Grim Fandango are a lot rougher around the edges. The main vocals are gruff and raspy but the other guitarist and bass player get involved along the way. The vocals have that Aussie twang too – I seem to notice that more and more the longer I’m here. I’m still dreading the day that my accent ends up fully converted and I turn up back in England one day to lots of chuckling and jeering from my mates when I open my mouth to speak! Back to the record anyway. The opener “Sirens” is something of a mid-paced and rowdy call to arms. It’s passionate and gritty and they hold on to both those traits throughout. One track the bass player sings is called “Garden Hose” and it’s more of a pop punk song – they sound a little like Gnarwolves to me on this one. The pace throughout is mainly at least mid-paced but they chuck in a couple of slower, more melancholy tracks. Most notably “Downer” halfway through the record, which turns up just before another standout track called “Too Punk To Drive” which is full of bitterness and regret. In fact, the lyrics across the record are personal and nicely down on themselves.
These guys have been kicking around for the best part of a decade now. There is another LP plus a few other things on Bandcamp. They’re actually doing a new song a month for 2014 for pay-what-you-like on Bandcamp too – interested to see what they come up with there.