Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for me to return to my writer’s table as we get invested in yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! The Melbourne-based 6-piece Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever emerged nine years ago with their subtle blend of 00’s Jangle-Pop and cheerful 60’s Surf-Rock – with not one, not two, but three guitarists amongst their line-up. They have now earned an established profile with popular LP releases like 2018’s ‘Hope Downs’ and 2020’s ‘Sideways To New Italy’ since those years, along with a top 5 entry on the UK’s Physical Singles Chart. They have earned acclaim from sites like Triple J, Pitchfork, Noisey, AllMusic, Pop Matters, Uncut, Far Out Magazine and others. They have also gained awards attention from the AIR Awards, Australian Music Prize, Music Victoria Awards, J Awards and National Live Music Awards as well. The typical two-year cycle between album releases is up for them, so we’re naturally getting their third album – ‘Endless Rooms’ – next month. It arrives on May 6th via Sub Pop Records/Ivy League Records, and it has been described by the group as “almost an anti-concept album“, with the title reflecting, “our love of creating worlds in our songs. We treat each of them as a bare room to be built up with infinite possibilities“, according to the band. It’s automatically clear that free time was spent by the band to craft their new record during lockdown, as the lead single finds the band experimenting with Synths for the first time to add a fresh dynamic to their folk-inspired sound. Check out ‘The Way It Shatters’ – with the music video, which taps into the new LP’s darker themes – below.
“It’s about how ending up in your particular situation in life is the result of absolute randomness. If you happen to be born into wealthy Australia or happen to be born into a war zone in Syria. That’s just the way it shatters“, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever say about their album announcement and recent single, adding, “So it’s when this good luck is mistaken for a sense of pride in one’s self or their country they become confused and deluded about what’s important. It’s when those on the other side of the luck scale are completely othered and considered not worthy“, in their insightful description of it. Reflecting more of a night-time vibe than most of their previous efforts, ‘The Way It Shatters’ gets up to some speed with nimble and angular guitar melodies that fill the opening, as the soaring Synth stabs and the sharp, layered Drum melodies fill the rest of the space when they follow. Evident 00’s Jangle-Rock and 60’s Surf-Rock qualities are still there, due to how the band structure the track and how the vocals have an acoustic dynamic, but it feels more lively and energetic than before due to how the Synths play off the tension and mark a more expounded first step into electronic territory. There’s a slightly dissonant Keyboard line and an ascending bassline thrown in, and when all of these elements come together, they sound not very dissimilar to The Psychedelic Porn Crumpets or Deerhunter overall. While the hooks are quite mainstream-friendly and the progressions of the chords are pleasant, the lyrics reflect a slightly darker and a slightly more sinister spin to these proceedings. Lyrics like “It’s desolation by rote?/All around your home/If you were in the boat/Would you turn the other way?” deals with humanity and how we all find our own place within it. Later hooks like “Lost in a magazine town/It’s all falling up again and in my head, I tell myself/It’s all just a necessary evil” dig their fans into isolation habits and the fortune that favours some of us above others. It never feels over-produced, although clear signs that bigger producers have been set up with the band for tracks like these. There’s nothing here that I haven’t really heard before, however, it has a more gritty sound than 2020’s ‘Sideways To New Italy’ which I enjoyed and skews towards a decidedly 90’s Indie sound that gets a nostalgic quality across. Pleasing to fans of the band’s existing material, I also think ‘The Way It Shatters’ appeals nicely to fans of bands like Mumford & Son’s who operate in a similar genre, but have a slightly more known profile to them. A clean, solid track with catchy lyricism and progressive ideas.
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever seemed really popular in 2020 and, as someone who likes to comment on the fuss, its only natural that we met before in the entries below:
‘She’s There’ (2020) – https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/06/08/todays-track-rolling-blackouts-coastal-fever-shes-there/
‘Cars In Space’ (2020) – https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/03/24/todays-track-rolling-blackouts-coastal-fever-cars-in-space/
That’s all for now! Thank you for checking out my latest post on the blog because I appreciate that on a Saturday, much like the band, you must feel shattered. ‘Scuzz Sundays’ is back tomorrow, and we will be tying it into current affairs once again because the central band have just released their eleventh studio album. They are known for singles like ‘Last resort’ and ‘..To Be Loved’, and the following was used as the main theme song for WWE’s ‘Monday Night Raw’ TV show between 2006 and 2009.
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