Melbourne livewires ROCKET SCIENCE's previous EP, the manic "Run Like A Gun" was, by frontman Roman Tucker's own admission "the quintessential garage-rock EP": a description your correspondent would have difficulty refuting.
However, once you've scaled the obvious peak, if you continue on in the same vein it stands to reason the returns will diminish, so it's a pleasant surprise to find Rocket Science immediately working on breaking out of the garage-rock straitjacket with "Being Followed."
I'm not sure t' Science will like me for saying it, but "Being Followed" reminds me of listening to the Stones' "Some Girls" for the first time and finding Jagger and co branching out - against the odds - into punk and (erk!) disco. Indeed, with its' insistent, hi-hat riding beat, the slippery basslines, Tucker's tension-fuelled vocals and the "Cape Fear"-style storyline, "Being Followed" is surely "Miss You" for the stalker generation. It's lithe, funky and excellent, wisely resisting the temptation to put the boot in sonically until the final coda.
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Of the EPs other two selections, "Fashion Queen" is a more typical sludgy rocker, but weirdo closing tune "Snake" adds a dash of angularity to the band's wicked stew and is a further example of Rocket Science's desire to push their full-throttle, big organ-imbued (fnarr!) rock'n'roll into pastures new. Good on 'em.
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