The Late Great Wireheads

The debut LP from Adelaide’s Wireheads lets genuine feeling dribble through their barnyard punk brawlings, writes FREYA ZAKNICH.

Wireheads are a four-, five- or six-piece group from Adelaide, numbers depending on the flavour of the occasion at hand. The main man is one Dom Trimboli, and has been from the very start, when there were but three Wireheads, evidence of which was preserved on their excellent demo tape on Major Crimes in 2013.

Their long-player, The Late Great Wireheads, is out as the first tangible bit from the Format collective’s label imprint. The organisation is currently living on the streets and in the cloud after an unsightly eviction last year, but will soon (how soon?) be a part of landed gentry again with a palatial residence in the works, we are assured. On the record Wireheads is made up of Tom Spall, Tim Richardson and Liam Kenny, who represent the menfolk of South Australia well with their musical involvement in Big Richard Insect, Doe and Bruff Superior.

Adelaide, as you are unlikely to know, has been most fertile ground for sprouting quite an array of performers in the last while. Some have floated on to germinate elsewhere, but there is no decimated field left rotting in their wake. Where another state might have seven or eight pleasant guitar groups to share the poetry of the mean streets with a group of followers on from Thursday through to Sunday, Adelaide has one band, one night and the same 50 faces to deal with. So there is a strong impetus for each project to be notably different. And Wireheads appear as an anomaly Australia-wide, not just in their hometown.

“I imagine him strung along through the water, fishhook tugging from the lip.”

To demonstrate, ‘Slippery’ is first up, misleading from the first moment with a saccharine, crooning violin. It rapidly withdraws and smashes, tablecloth yanked from under the glassware not so deftly, and turns into a tense and itchy two minutes. The way in which a violin has the ability to transform Wireheads songs is unsettling and queer. In ‘Angels with Filthy Souls’ it howls along with overlaying voices more like a synthesiser than a fiddle. Tom Spall often plays it like the lead guitar, as seen in the wails of ‘Junkie See Junky Do’. Same again in ‘Shock Therapy’, which comes satisfyingly close to any of the many similarly themed Ramones songs.

Not that Dom Trimboli could sound any less like Joey. His delivery is scratchy and pained. He keeps pace with the messy numbers veering into mania. They also have their moments of admirable restraint and seriousness where he is prone to falter. In the final track, ‘Not Not Schizophrenia’, I imagine him strung along through the water, fishhook tugging from the lip.

The Late Great Wireheads is a strange collection. Its title presents it as a retrospective, yet really it’s the group’s first big outing. This might be to signpost for lineup changes and the range of collaborators Trimboli has taken turns with. But rather than confusing, it appears complete, with the theme songs, hits and ballads all accounted for. Romance is provided by ‘Country Dreamin’’, again with the violin screeching, and with added flute to punctuate the steam-train bass line. It’s strewn with visions of rural bliss that are ecstatic and idealistic at first: “This is a real big deal.” But the slowing middle-eight is my point of revelation on this record. Exposed and ragged, defeated and owning to it, a whiplash in the sharp falling sentiment. It’s shaken off and recovered, but bears visible alteration for the remainder of the song.

There is another subtle switch to devastation in the single of the record. ‘Five Grand’ takes on simplistic pleasures in its title and contents, which are joyful and sincere, if potentially underwhelming. But then, with something like pathos, or ethos or another rhetoric altogether, “I like Adelaide Central Market on Saturday” is offset with a scream and “You could dig out a hole where my heart was/and you could fill it back up with substance.”

The Late Great Wireheads is golden with moments like these, where feeling is allowed to dribble through their barnyard punk brawlings. The songs on this record prove themselves energetic, unassumingly clever and capable of love again and again. Generally a band is considered good if they can muster even one of these qualities.

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‘The Late Great Wireheads’ is out now through Format Records. Upcoming gigs below.

Fri, July 4 – Tenth Court’s Dependence Day @ The Haunt, Brisbane, QLD [w/Martyr Privates, Dag, Enderie Nuatal, Deadshred + Pleasure Symbols]
Sat, July 5 – The Square, Sydney, NSW [w/The Warm Feelings, Mope City + Roamin Catholics]
Fri, July 11 – The Metro, Adelaide, SA [w/Thigh Master, Bruff Superior + Rule of Thirds]