Come next year, many of the bands who burst through during the frenzied Garage Rock explosion of the past 18 months or so will be given a hefty cold shoulder when they return with their new albums. Indeed, I'm sure you could accuse me of cynicism, but haven't The Datsuns gone quiet all of a sudden?
That's the problem with scenes, though, and even if you've no intention of hitching your colours to the nearest careering bandwagon, if the press decide otherwise, you gotta react fast if you want to avoid the rubble and debris.
Melbourne's ROCKET SCIENCE, though, sound like they caught the prevailing wind early and made notes accordingly. Their acclaimed recent album suggested escape routes from their trademark garage thrash and previous slinky single "Being Followed" found disco trimmings and a marked danceability entering the equation.
"One Robot" proudly takes up the baton again, too. Indeed, there's significantly less of the Clint Boon Farfisa here, with an insistent, trance-like tune carrying an intriguing tale of the robot who - "Short Circuit"-style - breaks free from his mechanical shackles and makes for the city, or as Roman Tucker so eloquently gibbers: "Synthetic programmed product...you might not like what you're gonna see" among the mantra-like choruses.
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Additional new track "In My Head" is worthwile, too. Slow and eerie, built around Dave Gray's pavlovian bassline and Kit Warhurst's fluttering heartbeat drums, it's almost "Being Followed"s logical successor, with more than a hint of the paranoid, "Cape Fear"-isms rearing their head again. Well, at least until they finally succumb and the final blast scomes over like The D4 on the set of "Lost In Space." Oh well, you can't have everything.
The bad taste is wiped by the 'Secert Machines' remix of "One Robot", however. In reality, the protagonist is Girls Vs.Boys' Eli Janney and the hypnotic, dreamy thrum he casts over the track numbs it out to great effect. Recalling the weirder end of Iggy's "The Idiot", Tucker literally sounds like the ghost being swalllowed by the machine by the time his vocals dematerialise.
So yeah, if Rocket Science can keep this pace up, surviving and thriving really should be safely on the agenda the next time around.
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