Features
New Noise: The Friendsters, Pork Chop Party, Multiple Man, Milkshake
By Mess+Noise
Revenge threats, foggy synth-punk, horny country and cryptic space-pop comprise this week’s roundup of new music.
– ‘Revenge is the Best Revenge’? The Friendsters had us from that song title. Not that we weren’t already fans, but we did sleep on their tape on Heavy Lows last year. This new single, off a four-song 7” EP due in May on Eternal Soundcheck, is the perfect time to get acquainted with the Sydney band’s shambling and punky noise-pop. Recorded by Lincoln Brown (Housewives, Ghastly Spats), the other three entries include an updated version of the tape’s tune ‘Shark Bait’ and another song nodding to the Bain murders of the 1990s. For now, though, feast your ears on this lone track. And just in case lyrics about black widows and revenge are too subtle, the vocalist does come right out and sing, “I’m gonna kill you.” Pre-order the 7” here, and catch The Friendsters on Saturday, March 22 at The Chippendale Hotel in Sydney with Gravel Samwidge, Kitchen’s Floor, Orion and J.E.M. More info on that here.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] The Friendsters - Revenge Is The Best Revenge by Eternal Soundcheck
– A newly minted offshoot of Puta Madre Brothers and The Impossible No Goods, Pork Chop Party rivals those two for piss-take genre exercise that’s secretly actually quite good. “Slow-dance country music” is the Melbourne duo’s speciality, and they have a handful of songs of it so far plus a video for the rickety would-be smash single ‘Walking Backwards’. Writing “songs about being sad, horny and blue,” the pair will play 26 of them this Saturday (March 8) at The Retreat in Brunswick, spanning two sets in the front bar from 8pm. It’s free even.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.]– We’ve gushed over Multiple Man repeatedly, but they just keep coming back with releases that scratch our itch for foggy synth-punk. So it is with ‘Guilt Culture’, half of a 7” out tomorrow (March 7) through new Melbourne label Detonic Recordings. It finds the brotherly Brisbane unit as era-defying as ever, chattering away to synths and programmed drums like yesteryear New Wavers gone rogue. The single is described as “two tracks of corrosive heat-wave and throbbing future-punk informed by paranoia, neuroses and Queensland’s surrealist political landscape.” (Political, eh?) Catch them live at the below dates, plus Brisbane and Sydney ones to be confirmed soon.
Sat, March 8 – The Metro, Adelaide, SA [w/ASPS, Baghdad Social Club + Efficiency]
Fri, April 4 – Boney, Melbourne, VIC [w/Stations + Vacuum]
Mon, April 7 – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne, VIC [free, w/Rites Wild, Gentlemen + Dead Boomers]
– We know very little about Milkshake, beyond the fact that they’re a Melbourne five-piece sharing members with Bored Nothing and Retro Culture. But we’re pretty into their free-download second EP, which came out in January and proves equally cryptic and spacey. Self-produced, with cover art by Darren Munce, it ranges from the breathy vocals and layered dream-pop of ‘Vacant Lot’ to the jazz shades and burnt psych edges of ‘Repeater’. They seem to still be finding their sound, but we like what we’re hearing so far.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.]+