If you backed me into a corner and forced me to make the choice, I would probably say that Underground Lovers are my favourite Australian act of all time, and that’s coming from someone who has a great deal of time for decades of Australian music. From the time I first heard their track, ‘Ripe’, on the seminal rooArt compilation, Youngblood 3, I was hooked. That was soon followed by their absolutely incredible second album, Leaves Me Blind. Referencing things my teenage self didn’t know existed such as krautrock, dub, drone and minimalism, it was a truly epiphanal experience for me. I saw the band at their first Sydney reunion show a few years back and was totally transported back. The original line-up played a set largely derived from that album, with rarely heard B-sides and the like thrown in for good measure. One of the Cyclic Defrost editors at the time urged me to write a review of the show. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was pure nostalgia, not really the point of Cyclic Defrost. It felt exactly like 1992, right down to the Annandale Hotel looking largely unchanged since both its, and the band’s, heyday.
I’ve heard a few rumours along various grapevines since then of the original lineup writing new material, readying themselves for a new album. Then, earlier this year, on receiving a link to a crowdfunding project to manufacture the new album, I signed up on the first weekend. They were always one of those bands whose new work I bought without bothering to check it out beforehand. So the only question now remaining is – How do Underground Lovers stand up 15 years after petering out?
One of the big things the band has in its favour is that, in spite of wide critical acclaim and a strong, loyal following, they were never really a fashionable band. Which has given them the advantage of being able to create new music which echoes their old work yet doesn’t sound dated, as that old work is not timelocked to 90s trends. Weekend, on the surface, feels very much like a stroll through the finer moments of the band’s 90s catalogue. To me, the basic Underground Lovers sound was always built on three basic elements – Glen Bennie’s beautiful guitar tone and way around single shape chord riffs, Vincent Giarusso’s yearningly melancholy melodies and Maurice Argiro’s hypnotic, repetitive, minimal bass loops. All are in effect across the album. As are a great many moments of contrast against those elements as well.
‘Spaces’ opens the album in a manner akin to how ‘Dream It Down’ starts the album that took its name, in a mood of contemplation, tension building without the release of a peak. The welcome return of Phillipa Nihil’s voice is one of the many varied textures of the band’s ever shifting sound, perfect in the dream pop here. Then it’s a breakout into the wide open light of ‘Can For Now’. I’m certain the title was a working one – ‘Can’ referring to the 70s German pioneers – that just stuck in the end, if the motorik of the rhythm is anything to go by. It is pure euphoric delight. ‘Haunted (Acedia)’ is a med-tempo wash purpose built for the falsetto leap in the chorus, Giarusso’s voice still giving me the same goose bumps, when he makes those jumps, as it did 20 years ago. ‘Riding’ scurries between its sly shifts from 9/4 to 4/4 and 7/4, its skittling drum machine background evoking the group’s later Ways To Burn album. ‘Au Pair’ is a real highlight, driven by an uptempo pulse and a top heavy bass riff that doesn’t give up for four and a half minutes, Bennie’s lava guitar fuzz exploding in and out as Giarusso builds to a frenzy. Another piece of dream pop follows as ‘In Silhouette’ showcases Nihil’s yearning voice before the 7 minute climax of ‘The Lie That Sets You Free’. It’s as perfect an encapsulation of Underground Lovers as one could expect – driving two note bass riff, synth swoops and arpeggios, backwards reverbed vocals, tension building until the guitar layers and interjections bliss out a glorious crescendo.
To call Weekend a return to form is a bit misleading. Underground Lovers never released a poor album. It was more the way the whole wonderful promise they made early in their career faded out through changing line-ups and commercial indifference that was disappointing. Weekend sounds like a band settled in the thought that they have nothing left to prove and therefore comes on with the air of confident brilliance. It echoes the group’s 90s wonder, yet feels fresh and timeless. What’s more, there is great promise that the next time I get to see them live, it won’t be a nostalgia show but, in turns, a melancholy and blistering insight into the now.
Adrian Elmer
