...with my little band.

And it comes out today.

Probably doesn't mean a lot to most of you since I'm not around much any more, but I spent a lot of my younger, musically formative years posting/absorbing here, so it's like an Obner musical experiment in a way. Maybe? OK, maybe not...

Anyway, have a listen, we're streaming it for free for a while:

http://thebrokenneedles.bandcamp.com/al ... ra-nullius

RIYL: Neil Young, Television, Van M, The Stones, The Birthday Party, The Triffids, or Australian music in general...

Would be great to hear what you guys think anyway.

Cheers,

Mick.

Given the bland and repetitive structure -- along with the predictable content -- of the songs, most of them are way too long. It's a classic mistake made by a lot of naive bands. This might work in a live setting, but on a record, i just want to keep skipping tracks.

The style of music is not for me. I'm not quite sure of your RIYL. The songs sound like a drive by truckers rip-off one song, ryan adams the next with a randy newman clone outlier thrown in there to give it that background alt-country sound that's way too familiar these days. IMO, I find it boring and predictable.

Good luck to you. Hope your recoup your costs because it sounds like you spent a little coin on production.

Hahaha I love it. I would have liked a bit more brutal honesty in your mini-review, but I suppose I can read between the lines...

I produced it myself, so production costs were moot.

Also, if you like American indie music you will hate this album.

I don't know what "indie" really means when a band is labeled as such, but to me it sounds very alt-country. I was gonna do a song-by-song review but I honestly couldn't make it through an entire song. Like I said good luck. It's not for me; but I could see people liking it.

The record does sound really good -- albeit on computer speakers-- so kudos on that.

This might disappoint you, Mick, but I like this a lot.

"Saltflat Baby" reminds me in a good way of Naked Prey (circa Under the Blue Marlin). The horns on "Cheap Gin" are awesome. "(I Am Not The) Resurrection", besides possessing a great title, sounds kinda like what the National might if they weren't set on playing supper clubs. "Cocaine Blues" is a little turgid and probably where Jerkass heard the DBT comparison - probably a track I'll end up skipping. "Tropical Disease" works despite its length - I love the guitar tone and the way it builds/collapses/builds. Good use of horns again. "Saigon Pussy" is adequately sleazy, almost sounds like it could've been a Raw Power outtake if Iggy hadn't been on junk. It kind of peters out a little with "Ruby" and "Take It Easy", but that's not much of a complaint.

I hear a lot of Beasts of Bourbon/Spencer P. Jones on this, and not in a derivative way either. Just sounds very Australian somehow. There's an element of Slow/Copyright going on too - which might explain my immediate appreciation.

In short: bad news. The elder likes it.

Cheers Radcliffe. Really appreciated.

Beasts of Bourbon are a big influence, too, I suppose. We just try to make Australian music because there's way too many kids getting around singing in American or Brtish accents making music that in no-way reflects the time or place. It shits me no end. It's as absurd as if a young band from New York sang about shit from the perspective of someone from an Australian city. Insanity, but it sells records, apparently...

We're from a small town way up North, a two day drive to the capital city of our own goddamn state, so that isolation and landscape comes out in the music, I guess. We're going on a national tour through all the Southern capitals soon, so I suppose we'll see how the city-based elite swallow it.

I like it.
Definitely hear the Stones influence, moreso than any of the Australian bands, actually. Especially in your vocals, you sometimes sound like another Mick.
Only about halfway through a first listen to the album, but those are my initial reactions. Yeah, digging it and I will be picking it up once I get paid.

EDIT:
Hearing a little bit of The Birthday Party in "Tropical Disease", but the production on that one is not quite tough enough... my one nit.

the exact opposite actually.

Jerkass, while brutally honest, is pretty spot on.

I put this on in the background after reading what all above had to say.

So far, so good. But "Cheap Gin" made me perk up and switch tabs and see what song was playing. I might play that on this week's podcast, Mick.

Cheers for the feedback gents.

And don't worry, I'll make a dubstep record next time for ya, Dalen.

Congrats. After a quick listen I like it. The tone of the guitars on several tracks are nice and chewy. Although in general I found the sound too clean and flat, especially the vocals. I liked Resurrection best and in another universe it should be a hit. Like R said above, I am clearly not your target demographic so my regard is probably not a good sign for its ultimate success.

I'll pile on. I like it too, surprisingly so. I like that you didn't bury the vocals like seemingly every band does these days. Is that you on vocals?

I like this a lot. My only gripes are with the production, but since you did it yourself I would expect it to be lacking polish.

Saigon Pussy sounds like it could have been on the soundtrack to Apocalypse Now. Yeah, you're not doing anything new, but when was the last time anyone made a completely original rock album anyway?

"Out of the depths of the estuarine tidal swamps, the fetid groundwater of snake-infested cane fields, and down with the driving tropical rain of their home . . ." is pretty much the sound that comes across. Not unlike some swampish music you find in the southeast/gulf states. I could hear you play in a bar here and think you guys are local or regional.

And, while not original I think the production is pretty good and playing is solid and songwriting is decent . Like Jerkass says, there is an audience for this kind of music.

my drawbacks:
- a little overboard on vocal affectations in Take It Easy,
- too much riffage in the background during verses on some songs, the words need room to breath
- condensing some songs to keep the meat closer to the bone and not so drawn out

really like Cheap Gin, Tropical Disease[a bit long], Saigon Pussy, Toy Horses

for a proper debut album though this is great effort and there are some stand outs, some middling, and really for me just that one clunker in the last song

I would argue it's never happened.

But, not necessarily win-able. There are some definable aspects of originality from a social or collective move toward a sound stemming from a gradual movement[genre, sound] undefined. This has been done since I have ever listened to music. Its a critic's tool[I am guilty], too. . . . I agree with you in purity, but there are marks of recognizable form that derived from something hardly known before it arguably in all art . . . still arguable and interesting.