Mixture of twangy, pensive, lo-fi indie pop, and sort-of classic rock. Made by two guys from Australia. Band formed in 2003. Sometimes raw, but not bad. First few songs focus more on single-string guitar melodies as accompaniment, as opposed to chords. Drums mostly gentle high hat. Second half of album tends to have stronger guitar and slightly faster tempos.
1) “Say It Again” (4:36). Kind of twangy guitar, bass, lazy drums, and tambourine. 0:18 male vox introduced, which favors the long vowel sounds (though doesn’t stay for whole song). 2:11 slows down with signal from high hat, which takes more precedence until about 2:30, but remains stronger. Then focus on guitar melody. 3:53 gets quieter. 4:08 drums focus on slow snare. End at 4:27.
2) “Rusty” (3:42). Mid-tempo guitar. Slightly faster than previous song. 0:15 vox, more normal-sounding than previous song. End at 3:35.
3)*“Hometown Blues” (3:45). Mostly vox and guitar, with whispery high hat and bass. After 2:00, guitar gets echo-ier at times (as vox stop to let guitar have spotlight). After 3:00, more focus on bass. End at 3:39.
4) “Waves” (2:05). Slow-galloping guitar and bass intro. Slow-rolling drums at 0:09. 0:26 vox, which are slightly whiny. Neil Young-ish?
5)“All My Love Is A Flowering Bush” (3:56). Nostalgic guitar melody intro, bass, consistent gentle high hat. 0:57 vox.
6)*“Clouds” (3:13). Guitar chords! A bit more classic rock-like. Mid-tempo. End at 3:08.
7) “Snow Blue” (15:31). A mother of an instrumental. Of course, slow, quiet intro. Intro: spacey-ish guitar echoes. Rolling high hat for a bit. After 1:00 settles into a guitar loop with slow ratatat drums. 1:37 guitar and drums change. Ridiculously high guitar (or something else?) peeps in its own harmony around 2:30. Back to echo-y after 2:45. 3:17 back to “normal.” 3:50 stronger, more distorted guitar kicks ups to mid-tempo. 5:00 guitar echoes start to get longer and slightly closer to wannabe-epic sounding. 6:09 guitar buildup, imitated by high hat. 7:00ish guitar pluck echoes get repetitive, hypnotic. 9:28 drums get more varied. Guitar speaking more. End at 15:23.
8)* “Matthew Flinders” (4:02). Mid-tempo. Neil Young?
9)*“Loverboy” (16:41). An even bigger mother of a song. Lonely, anguished guitar, with bass, high hat in before 0:20. 1:37 more guitar distortion, seems more anguished. 2:40 almost a solo guitar, but other instruments still there. 2:53 quieter. 3:27 build up back. 4:58-5:05 silent. Comes back with creepy, dreamy guitar. 5:28 drums creep back in, getting faster at 5:56. 11:58 quiet to commanding distorted guitar, 12:21 high hat only, 12:27 guitar slowly comes back.14:26 quiet, drums and guitar creep back. End at 16:37.
10)*“Lay My Heart” (4:25). Opens with drums. 0:15 electric rockin’ guitar. Male distorted vox bordering on screaming vox, but not quite. Ends abruptly.
11) “Displaced” (3:01). Back to lo-fi. Quiet acoustic guitar opening. Non-distorted male vox. End at 2:51.
12) “A Saucerful Of Secrets” (8:07). Instrumental. Repetition of basic guitar loop, but with varying loudness and accompaniment by drums and bass.
13) Bonus Track (3:38). Mid-tempo instrumental until 1:48, when slightly echo-y vox enter and stay (mostly “ahh-ahh” and some “eeyy-eeyy”). End at 3:32.
-margot