Songs Of The Third And Fifth

On their first album since 2001, Adelaide’s The Mark Of Cain continue to act as cult role models for awkward, unlovely, outsider rock in this country, writes IAN ROGERS.

I
There’s always been this unimpeachable outsider vibe running through The Mark of Cain and it’s not glamourous at all. Quite the opposite, actually. We’re not used to this. What we’re used to is the spectacle of rock outsiders dressing up and drugging down, not committing themselves to a regimented, sustained, fucked-up course of music-making for years – no, decades – on end, in Adelaide. So here on TMOC’s fifth album, we are once again presented with more uneasiness: an unrelenting barrage, something razor sharp and calculating, beautifully presented and clear and exacting. But also something mired in that same old horrible, ordinary type of fear that John Scott seems to sweat out at every turn. It’s confronting. It has been for a while now. Who does this?

II
Office workers in trouble make this sort of music. We have a history of it. We’ve always been really good at making super-masculine butt-rock in this country and the fringe of all that responds to the centre, à la Australian noise-rock. It’s a response to the archetype mainly, not the sound. So Angus and Barnesy and every other dickhead at the pub begat a bunch of other weirder men who somehow rock but don’t fit that yobbo mould. Think the geeky Ricaine, the stoned-over Midget, the overarching weirdness of My Disco, Dead and Budd, the drone evil of The Grey Daturas and Whitehorse, the very real blood pouring out of Tom Lyngcoln’s head. It’s never pretty and The Mark of Cain are the godparents of all this. They were there first. Clean-shaven engineers in denim shorts and Rollers, singing about battle and isolation and suburbia as if they were the same thing. Righteous, depressing, strange, from then to now. They’re from that era where Joy Division were totally serious, total outsider, no-girlfriend, no-future, death-march music. As such, TMOC’s contribution to our history is pretty grim but it staked out a lot of ground. It’s let a lot of really vital Australian rock music find some context over the years.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Barkhammer by The Mark Of Cain

III
Elder statesmen bands of any ilk usually do one of two things: 1. Suck completely or 2. Take stock. Songs of the Third and Fifth is the latter. This album is a collection of the things that TMOC do very well. This is why when I listen in now, I can hear all this history. The baritone vocal melodies are back, joining ‘Separatist’ to ‘Battlesick’ (1989), and John Scott’s guitar playing very neatly switches between the riff-math of 2001’s This is This and the more goth textures of their early stuff. His brother Kim is in fine form as well: an awesomely precise bass player, the decade off has loosened him up a bit. You can hear every damn nuanced nanosecond of this in ‘1000 Yards’. That riff is the sort of swagger you only get very early and late in your career. Of course, also helpful is John Stanier’s (Battles) drumming, of which there is very little to report other than that it is as excellent as one would expect. The outro of ‘Avenger’ is surely a homecoming for him as well, drawing as it does from the same well as Helmet’s Meantime. Over repeated listening, other details emerge. It’s quite a layered and diverse TMOC album and the whole thing rocks a little harder. The tweaks to achieve this are so small and effective that I’m tempted to call this supremely “confident,” but that’s the wrong word for music like this.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] The Mark Of Cain - Heart Of Stone by Mess+Noise

IV
This is what I feel you need to know heading into Songs of the Third and Fifth. It isn’t much. Some opinion, a little history, serviceable description. You’ll have to do most of the heavy lifting yourself and, make no mistake, parts of this album weigh heavily. That’s what 20 years gets you: raw weight, bulk. What I love about The Mark of Cain, and all outsider weirdo rock music really, is that this type of art represents a redistribution of that tonnage. These records are made by complex people for the most straightforward reasons. There’s no acclaim and no popularity in waiting. The history books will probably never be opened for them. Their audience predominantly comprises record collectors, music dorks and awkward men. We’re not exactly a prize catch. Yet absolutely none of this matters at all every Monday night, when The Mark of Cain convene in their practise room to escape whatever it is we’re all running from.

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‘Songs of the Third and Fifth’ is out now through Feel Presents. Tour dates for March 2013 here.