Swapmeet, Frost Children album reviews
Swap meeting, Mount Zero
★★★
“Mount Zero is a place you pass but never go,” Swapmeet’s Maxwell Elphick says of the mountain that appears to be the northernmost point of the Grampians.
The band passed the cryptically named mountain repeatedly on their way from their hometown of Adelaide to Melbourne to perform.
These long, empty journeys have become part of the much-hyped indie rock band’s mythology; Their first show in Wollongong was packed with Adelaide faithful who traveled across the border in support.
It’s fitting, then, that their debut album drags on like one of these excursions. Single and opener has a repulsive sound I know!scattered lament seeds and the liveliness of standing out SandWhile honking horns and screaming guitars hit them with exclamation points Personal (Don’t Take) And midway.
Band members Maxwell Elphick, Venus O’Broin, Jack Medlyn and Josh Doherty switch instruments and vocals throughout the album, which they assembled at the Port Noarlunga pad, which features a ping-pong table overlooking the ocean.
Despite the musical chairs, Mount Zero It’s a remarkably focused and balanced debut album, with an icy atmosphere reminiscent of ’90s alternative rock and a lonely drive down an empty highway. Jules LeFevre
Children of Frost, Fine Tuning Poetry
★★★★
NYC-via-Midwest sister duo Lulu and Angel Prost have seen their stardom rise exponentially since last year. sisterIt is their sixth album after many years and production work is being done with names such as Kim Petras and Ninajirachi. This increased profile brought a major record label deal and unwanted attention of the parasocial kind.
After an encounter with an overzealous fan (the EP’s eponymous “tweak”), the duo fled New York and fled to Tokyo; There, with jet lag and insomnia, they recorded this EP inspired by the whole ordeal. In songs quoting the book by Madonna’s follower Robert Dewey Hoskins and Rhonda Saunders Whisper of Fear: The True Story of the Prosecutor Who Stalked FollowersThe two examine the encounter in emotional detail.
The result is somehow not dark or dour but life-affirming and warm, moving away from the brash indie sleaze it’s known for and towards the pop aspirations and melodic melancholy that marks the song’s best parts. sister.
satellites And Light Leak pair their hyperpop experimentalism with the chart-topping emo-EDM pouring out of dorm rooms in the mid-2010s (think Chainsmokers, Zedd, et al), while sparkling synths and jangly choruses Creep And life after death lie down somewhere in between Dance Dance Revolution and Midwestern emo.
You may find yourself enthusiastically chanting “We never die, no cyanide!” You will find yourself shouting. a frantic babbling rhythm as if it were a mantra. Robert Moran
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Robert Moran is deputy Spectrum editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
