"take down your fences..."
Listening to Melbourne's Blackbirds FC's potent folk rock synthesis on their latest "Island of the Dogs" and I couldn't help but think of the late 70's to around 93 as a broad sweet spot of music when there seemed to be so many styles of indie rock converging. There was hangover art rock, proto punk tones to new wave, straight punk and the fusion of blues and soul and rock as well as the combative push of hair metal versus grunge. Somewhere in the middle there was the 90's college rock radio where rockabilly and folk and country were stewing and mixing with indie rock that itself was borrowing a lot from 50's Americana rock and 60's Brit pop. When I hear "Island of the Dogs" and the utter tightly wound musicality of Blackbirds FC's along with a sort of rock classicalism in the undertow, their sound reminds me of a distinct amalgam of primarily two bands from that wide rock birth, namely, the potent jazz meets Brit pop meets new wave of UK's Joe Jackson and the country meets garage rock punch of Cracker from Redlands, California. I am big fans of both of these artists and I somehow hear a similar multi-genre layering, done so well here with a universal approach, crafting music that would appeal to many core audiences. I look forward to delving in further.
-Robb Donker Curtius
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THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.facebook.com/blackbirdsF.C.band
Melbourne band Blackbirds FC mark their return to stages and the airwaves in 2021 with a brand new single ‘Island of the Dogs'
In 2019 the Victorian quintet released their debut album Field Recordings, its collection of alternative country rock songs receiving acclaim from respected Australian music journalists and broadcasters such as Stuart Coupe, Noel Mengel and Paul Gough.
“A great song lives beyond your time and mine. You can find 12 of them on Field Recordings, a record to treasure when many of this year’s next big things are forgotten"
Noel Mengel (Music Trust E-Zine)
Now in 2021 they’re back in the studio recording their second full-length album and the first fruits of their labour have arrived in the form of the lush melodies and chiming sounds of single ‘Island of the Dogs’. Inspired by the teenage memories of songwriter Jeremy Gronow, the song transports the listener back to summer nights at Phillip Island in the 1980’s.
“My family would go to these cheesy yacht club dinner dances at a motel called Yackatoon in Cowes. The entertainment was always provided by a bloke with a big Lowry organ with a very primitive drum machine,” Jeremy recalls vividly. “Basically the guy’s set was playing show tunes and working through the various dance rhythms – the Foxtrot, Cha Cha, Salsa and so forth. It was incredibly kitsch and absolutely torturous for me as a young music fan just starting to get into alternative stuff.”
“I’d sneak out of the motel and go across the road to the Isle of White Hotel beer garden. I’d stand there listening to the older, cooler kids partying to ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’ and ‘Come Said the Boy’ and desperately wishing I could get inside. After the pub closed there would be people doing burn outs in Sandmans and utes out the front until the cops came,” reminisces Jeremy. “I thought it was all the best thing ever.”
Musically, the band continue to weave nuanced and intelligent indie rock into their cosmic and baroque, country and folk-rock sound. Jeremy also reveals that "on 'Island of the Dogs' we were also drawing from a mutual love of The Police, Talk Talk, The Pretenders and XTC. All bands we never left behind from the 1980’s."
From the same decade, one can also hear the ghosts of bands like The Triffids, Prefab Sprout and The Go-Betweens exchanging sonic pleasantries with current contemporaries such as Halfway, The Church, Paul Kelly, Iron & Wine and Wilco. The rhythm section chops and tumbles with precision and a gentle pulse, while the guitars jangle with dreamy verve as Gronow explores the sounds of personal and cultural nostalgia.
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