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Northeast Party House are back with Dare, a high energy release that’s sure to get the blood pumping

The party boys from Northeast Party House are back with their sophomore album Dare. It’s self-produced and mixed by the bands own drummer Malcolm Besley, so you know what you’re getting is pure unfiltered NPH.

Known for bringing the dance vibes through a unique mix of electronic synths and good old-fashioned garage rock instruments, the Melbourne six piece have delivered another vibrant and energetic album to the table that tweaks their formula for some fresh new sounds.

dare

Northeast Party House are back with Dare, which takes the listener through love songs, hangover blues and even how to handle the craziest clubs in the world.

Their first album Any Given Weekend came our way in 2014, giving us a sweet taste of their genre blending sound. The record showed off their indie rock/dance fusion with songs like The Haunted and Sick Boy that left us keen for a follow up.

We recently caught up with Oli Packard from the band to chat about the release of Dare; and when asked about how this album compared to their previous work:

Any Given Weekend was testing ground for a lot of stuff. As it was our first album, we were learning a lot about the process as we went.”

Dare was written in part while they were on the road in the UK and Europe so it’s unsurprising that the live show was a big influence on how they wanted the new album to sound.

The album is brimming over with live moments waiting to be unleashed, such as the minute long outro groove on Wallflower, the sing-along moments in the title track Dare, and the 40 seconds of mayhem that signifies the end of the album in Love Machine.

The album has seen their sound develop but if you listen closely enough, the band’s early influences of 80s acts like INXS and Talking Heads can still be heard. It’s particularly clear in the vocals from Zach Hamilton-Reeves who demonstrates great variation in his vocal abilities throughout the record.

He effortlessly switches between sweetly crooning in For You and Calypso Beach  and a natural, chant-like tone in Girl and Love Machine that carries the seemingly endless energy of these songs.

That’s one of the best things about the album – the energy. If a band’s going to call themselves Northeast Party House, you’ve got to hope it’ll be the kind of party that starts wrapping up at dawn two days after it was meant to.

Fortunately the lads succeeded in keeping the party alive all the way through with Dare, when even the calmest song isn’t without a moment or two that’ll keep you awake.

For You is the first single from the album and has been circling for a few months now. It shows the band take a step away from their typical garage rock guitar sounds and move towards a cleaner, produced electronic sound.

It’s about a past relationship with a dash of nostalgia and melancholy thrown in while also conveying a ‘happy it happened’ feeling. This, combined with the catchy guitar chords, soothing vocals from Zach and a surprise synth solo around the four-minute mark make for quite a track.

The final song on the album, Love Machine, is a real highlight. Written by Oli, it was apparently inspired by the time he spent seventeen hours straight in Berghain, the beyond exclusive Berlin nightclub. It’s pretty easy to hear the inspiration as the song shows off a selection of typical euro dance sound effects. It’s a very big way to end a very big album.

Catch the lads for the real party as they tour the new album around Australia throughout September and October. Read all about it here.