We’ve been kicking up a bit of a fuss about this little band. Why? They confuse us. What are they? Who are they trying to be? Why do I get the feeling that they’re not trying at all? In a climate where everyone in Australia wants to sounds like someone else, it’s almost disarming to find a band that sounds as unique as EBAGC.
East Brunswick All Girls Choir are one of those disarmingly un-definable bands that seem to be picking and mixing from the choicest cuts of music. Good Friday saw the band drop their eagerly awaited debut LP Seven Drummers, and we reckon it’s got potential to be an instant Australian classic.
Despondent, familiar and wholly unique, if you only manage to listen to one Australian album this year, make it East Brunswick All Girls Choir‘s debut.
From the moment you hit play on West Brunswick, you’ll know whether you’re gonna love or hate Seven Drummers. The track swings opens two mahogany saloon doors onto a sprawling, instrumental jam that seems to stretch beyond the horizon. It strikes a perfectly balanced slowmotion tempo, which is kept pretty constant right throughout the forty odd minute album.
The single Mon Repos (Charlie’s Jam), which we heard earlier this year, fits perfectly among the rest of the album, while Dirty Bird, with it’s haunting, minor chord, 3/4 build ups remains a standout track. Its Violent Femmes angst stands proudly against the more despondent, Slint-esqe noodling of 14 Clay Gully Court and the driving consistency and speaker tearing insanity of Darius.
Each of these tracks extend for much longer than a less pretentious band would allow, yet never does EBAGC’s sound ever get old. When the songs break down, they do so in a way that should be familiar to any day one Neil Young fan. The textures on this record sound like they belong on an insanely overmastered Wilco album, rather than on something to come out of Moonee Ponds.
With each song reaching slowcore sonic proportions epic enough to be a closing track, the actual closing track is perhaps the song to end all songs, Aeroflot being the most calmly destructive track I’ve heard since 2007’s All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone – which remains my favourite album of all time.
East Brunswick All Girls Choir’s debut is a bold statement in a stagnant musical environment, and the band have created eight tracks that are unrivaled in it’s field of hardcore guitar balladry. The album is available as a digital download from bandcamp and are available in a limited number of Melbourne record stores – Missing Link/Collectors, Pure Pop, Thornbury Records, Record Paradise and Jet Black Cat in Brisbane. Keep up with upcoming launch tour details on their facey. Fingers crossed for a Sydney date!
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