The Blood Pressure Sessions

For a city so adverse to ghosts, so obsessed with a glossy veneer, so enamoured with money and the dogged pursuit of one-upping your neighbour, there’s no surprise Sydney spawns bands as deliberately contrary as Naked on the Vague, albeit in the subterranean realm. For NOTV, mere existence is enough validation in a city where the odds are against them. Cultural outlets are frequently threatened in favour of noiseless homes for inner city dwellers (once a contradiction, now a council’s obligation) and whole constellations of new music are muffled by a policeman’s admonishing finger.

This is the climate Naked On The Vague has evolved in, though up until now their inspiration seemed derived from elsewhere, most obviously the squat legacy of New York’s 80s No Wave movement. If this has been the sole point of contention for their detractors in the past, then The Blood Pressure Sessions is likely to disarm anyone still wary. There is something evocatively primeval about this debut full-length: it’s a well-sequenced collection of gravel textured pop songs, coloured with wailing reverberated vocals and disaffected gestures, embedded within grimy, anti-establishment compositions. The No Wave connection is still obviously there – most notable on previously released tracks such as the violently repetitive All Aboard – but these songs don’t settle on violence as a sole virtue: there is a heart to be explored, lyrics to be deciphered, and a pervasive sense of mystery.

The Blood Pressure Sessions sounds like the frustration – that inherently youthful frustration – that comes with feeling marginalised. Capitalising on ones misfortune has become unfashionable in today’s middle-of-the-road straddling climate, but The Blood Pressure Sessions, through sheer aural suggestion, makes it all seem so necessary. This is a welcome reminder that Sydney can still produce something haunted, rough around the edges, and imbued with soul.

by Shaun Prescott