Harmony
The debut album for Melbourne outfit Harmony will reaffirm your belief in malevolent, cantankerous rock, writes REN? SCHAEFER.
Tom Lyngcoln has never been afraid to edge his way out onto a precarious limb. With his band The Nation Blue, the ex-Tasmanian mined the furthest reaches of noisy, messy and emotionally intense punk rock. Owner of a gravelly, ravaged voice that can peel paint, and a guitar style that can be alternately vicious and heart-rending, Lyngcoln has made a quantum leap with new outfit Harmony.
Right from the start it was clear that this was no ordinary venture. When the guitarist married drummer Alex Kastaniotis, instead of retreating into some kind of traditional notion of wedded bliss and domestic ritual, the couple set about writing and recording one song each Saturday until they had compiled enough material for an album. Eventually, they recruited Jon Chapple (ex-McLusky, Shooting At Unarmed Men) on bass to bolster their nascent group.
The concept behind Harmony is as ingenious as it is simple: a three-piece band playing downbeat, emotionally charged punk rock, unpolished and bare boned in its delivery, while three soaring female harmony vocalists provide a counterpoint to Lyngcoln’s roughly hewn snarl. The trio of voices (provided by Amanda Roff, Quinn Veldhuis and Maria Kastaniotis) at times come off like The Ronettes, or even more startlingly, like a chorus line out of one of Jim Steinman’s theatrical rock epics. The effect is completely original though, lending a soulful, honeyed edge to the clattering din of the band. The contrast between the brutally stark music and the angelic mini-choir couldn’t be more severe, yet unexpectedly they meld into a unified whole that is infinitely greater than the sum of its constituent parts.
08 Cacophonous Vibes by Solar/Sonar Records
This is a band that is best experienced in a live setting, where its power is overwhelming. The recording on the other hand captures the songs in their rawest, most immediate form, having been captured before the group had ever set foot on a stage. That is not to say that these versions are in any way inferior – if anything, the feeling of revelation, even to its creators, is documented perfectly by engineer Matt Voigt (Cat Power, Oh Mercy). The sound is that of a rougher-than-fuck demo, with instrument channels overloaded and crackling with natural distortion at times. The backing singers still sound a bit surprised, as if they couldn’t believe how good the whole lot is sounding. There is a touch of Phil Spector’s wall-of-sound primitivism in the production, which can only be deliberate, even though it possesses the effortlessness of a fortuitous accident.
?There is nothing to distract from the raw power of the songs, which rattle along with the unstoppable force of a runaway freight train.?
Most importantly, there is nothing to distract from the raw power of the songs, which rattle along with the unstoppable force of a runaway freight train. Weighty and torturous subjects form the lyrical basis of Lyngcoln’s songs – violence, domestic drudgery, chemical dependence (love is indeed the drug), death and despair are all prevalent themes. The threatening sleeve imagery provides a clue: a shotgun being trained on both audience and band by one from their midst. There is something very Tasmanian about all of this, although Tassie intellectuals would probably vehemently dismiss this as a romanticisation of a hackneyed backwoods myth. Rather than elucidate his lyrical concerns with a straight transcript, Lyngcoln has penned a rambling stream-of-consciousness synopsis. It’s dark, and it gets darker yet, and head injuries figure along the way.
The whole thing – music, words and visuals – has a feel all its own, which is hard to contain in a review. Suffice to say, this is a darkly magnificently Australian work of art. The stuff that reaffirms your belief in malevolent, cantankerous rock. The stuff that builds on what has come before, yet also innovates. The stuff that compels you to keep coming back to it. The stuff that will stick out as monumental in years to come. The stuff that will make you get into arguments at the pub. The stuff that makes you want to pick up a guitar, or a paintbrush, or put pen to paper. The stuff that will never win any awards or top any triple j polls, but fucking well should. The stuff that stinks of sweat and beer and sleepless nights and punched walls. The stuff that keeps you alive.
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####?Harmony? is out now through Casa Del Disco/Other Tongues.