Ruined Fortune

Ruined Fortune is Angela Bermuda (Circle Pit, Straight Arrows, Angie) and Nic Warnock (Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys, Exotic Dog, R.I.P. Society). EVERETT TRUE relishes the Royal Trux-style heaviness and distortion of their debut album.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Side one and ‘In a Hole’ starts off with that heavy, heavy, monster Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys guitar sound I know and love – love so much that it lost me a potentially lucrative gig at The Monthly cos I wasn’t prepared to tone down or alter my writing, not when it comes to music that was so fucking important to me – and then turns into Hookworms.

Or Black Angels.

Or Spacemen 3.

Or Blank Realm.

Or anyone you desire to name who has that beautiful relentless monochromatic thudding beat underpinning a wash of distortion and sound. Vocals mixed way back, of course. Vocals mixed way, way back. They’re here to add texture, not impede the charge.

ASIDE: I wrote those opening paragraphs before reading the band’s biography. I had forgotten Ruined Fortune are composed of Nic Warnock (Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys, Exotic Dog, R.I.P. Society) and Angela Bermuda (Circle Pit, Southern Comfort, Straight Arrows, Angie) – and I didn’t know that this album, recorded over the space of two days (why so long?) in Brisbane also features Daniel Spencer (Blank Realm) and Joe Alexander (Bedroom Suck) on drums. And that Ruined Fortune is quite clearly Nic and Angie’s homage to Royal Trux, two of the tallest people I’ve ever shared a tube ride with.

‘All Seeing Eye’ sounds drunk, stoned. It asks you your name and then sweetly disregards your answer. It loses itself in a cavalcade of stoner girl and boy immolation, the guitars feeding back and continually arguing with themselves, the riff nothing to speak of except for its sheer mindless determination, the drums pure first-single Mary Chain basic. Wait, am I describing ‘Transparent Faces’ here?

And yes, I will ascribe human characteristics to inanimate objects. This is pop music we’re discussing here – more important than politics.

‘Transparent Faces’ is psychedelic, anguished. I could bear to have this played back at me another 30 or so times, LOUD. It’s questing and straining at the leash, lost in a delirium tremens haze.

“Nic and Angie have way cooler fuckin’ record collections than you.”

Now we’re feeling expectant. ‘Closing Till’ is expectant, playful like Andrew Bolt. An Atari-era drum machine loops behind spoken-word dialogue and a wash of spatial FX that could well be arguing against the confines of the adult world and corporate responsibility. This reminds me of Hobart and its Brave New World. This reminds me of 1978, and the sound of Sheffield. The distortion and slightly chaotic bent of the vocal suggests a secondary political narrative.

Do you despise your audience? Well, do you?

Most of this album is about establishing cultural capital: Nic and Angie have way cooler fuckin’ record collections than you and don’t they know it.

Thematically, we’re talking the inner suburbs of Sydney 2014. It’s a great fucken’ track, possibly my favourite.

Side two and ‘On the Screen’ begins coy like William Reid or Stephen Pastel. I just lied. This is my favourite song, because right now I’m into conventional Velvet Underground-influenced pop songs, baby. This will be the one voted into the Mess + Noise Readers Poll at about #24. This will be the one triple j doesn’t play.

The guitar on the lengthy and extortionate ‘That Strain, That Spark/End Of The Day’ keeps wanting to break into a Hookworms song again, but the absence of a regular defined groove means that it never will. Oh ... and that contemplative piano and deep-end vocal. Pity? No, not really. We already have a Hookworms. Nice of them to throw in a rehearsal tape to remind us of their authenticity, don’t you think? It develops into something. Of course it develops into something. The mood is ... Rushmore intense.

‘Ivory Heartbreaker’ scares me. I wish the instruments didn’t sound so much like a washing machine cycle from the ’80s. Ow! Leave my ears alone.

‘Black and Red’ starts like the greatest fucken’ rock song ever – it’s the B-side of an obscure New Wave single from ’79, in case you’re interested – and continues accordingly. Not so much dolewave as way-too-bleeding-drollwave. Are they singing “I will kill you till my wedding day?” Who cares? Feel the bleed. Melodies are so Gotye, don’t you think?

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‘Ruined Fortune’ is out now through Hozac.