Album Review: Super Wild Horses-Fifteen

Whatever is being put in the Australian water keep pouring it in because it is producing some of the best ‘60s primitive garage rock meets post-punk music around. Eddy Current Suppression Ring, UV Race, and now another winning gem with Super Wild Horses’ debut Fifteen. Produced wonderfully by Mikey Young of ECSR fame, Super Wild Horses thankfully on imitate ECSR for a few seconds on their first song before diving into their own groove.

The band is actually quite bare and sparse in comparison to some garage/punk bands these days, probably due to being a two-piece, but mange to balance it with harmonies and melodicism that somehow manages to work despite, or maybe due, to the original sound of the band. The contrast is actually built around the two sides of the LP. Side A is the punkier side of the band. The thump of “Lock and Key” that grabs you instantly, with a guitar line working as a bass line, and spazzy yet controlled drum work; it’s clear what pros these two girls are. While the other tracks are more lean in sound, it not only works as a good backbone to the songs, but a contrast when new elements are added. The twinkle that comes to “Fifteen” just by a small key riff or the fury and mood set to the sublime “Golden Town” due to distortion and cymbal crashes. It all works out to the pieces adding up to one great sum of the parts.

Of course, side B serves as a nice opposite to all this. Not only due to the tracks sounding more fleshed out, but in the much more apparent harmonies as well. There’s the sweet despair and desire that comes from “I Want You”’s drum work and connected voices, but also the dissonance projected from “Enigma (You Say Go)” from the same exact elements. It all sums up what the band is trying to do, make ever so subtle differences work with one another perfectly. When one hears “Degrassi” which sounds like a Shop Assistants song through a fuzzy punk rock filter, but not a rip off or shallow misstep of either part, it’s hard not to think this. Super Wild horses are the musical equivalent of a rubber band; tight and springy on some parts, looser and different on others, and they manage to weave through and connect those areas so easily that it’s scary. A near perfect punky record.

(mp3) Super Wild Horses-Golden Town
(mp3) Super Wild Horses-Degrassi

Links:

Super Wild Horese on Myspace

Buy Fifteen here, from HoZac Records

Super Wild Horses American Tour Dates:

September 16: Brooklyn, NY – Cameo Gallery
September 17: Phildelphia, PA – Cha-Cha Razzi
September 18: Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle
September 19: Chicago, IL – Permanent Records
September 23: Memphis, TN – Gonerfest
September 27: New Orleans, LA – Saturn Bar
September 28: Austin, TX – Beerland
September 29: Austin, TX – Club 1808
October 1: San Francisco, CA – The Hemlock Tavern
October 2: Davis, CA – Maximum Freedom Festival