Sounds Like Winter – Sticks & Stones
(Fundamental Illness Records)
Reviewed by Michel Rowland.
‘Sticks and Stones’ is the second album from Sydney band Sounds Like Winter. In the eighteen months (ish) since last year’s debut, ‘Initiate’, the band has rapidly gone from an emerging, very good but occasionally patchy musical identity within Australia’s incredibly vibrant neo-post-punk scene, to prove themselves on this record as one of the leaders of the pack.
Over the course of recording ‘Sticks and Stones’, the group underwent a few line-up changes. Bassist Jamie Pajuczok was replaced early in the sessions with Matt Judge, who also runs the band’s label, an exciting new Sydney-based DIY distro, Fundamental Illness Records. During the transition between bassists, regular guitarist Andi Lennon also filled the boots of studio bassist for a few tracks, and to good effect. Judge in turn left the group near the end of the sessions, with Jamie P lately rejoining SLW for some coming live shows. Meanwhile, second guitarist Tommy Webster had also made his exit early in the piece, sometime shortly after the band’s most recent visit to New Zealand in February. Thankfully, he can still be heard trading licks with Lennon on several songs.
For the bulk of the album, however, the core of SLW comprises founding member Ant Banister (vocals, synths, programming, production), Andi Lennon (guitars, vocals), Leticia ‘Tish’ Olhaberry (drums) and Matt Judge (bass). “Ant did some bass too”, Andi tells me. “It’s a big old soup. So long as it tastes good.”
I won’t waste any more time with the biographical preamble. If you don’t know enough about Sounds Like Winter yet, then you need to fix that yourself. I want to get straight into the songs on this album. And it’s a fucking fantastic collection of songs.
‘Blood Red’ will by now be familiar to anyone paying attention to this band, and is arguably the de facto ‘lead single’ from the album. Earlier this year, a demo mix of the track appeared both on the ‘Songs to Scattered Symbols’ split-release with IKON and Disjecta Membra (coinciding with the aforesaid NZ shows), and with a download collection of demos through Fundamental Illness. Without a doubt the immediate standout from those original teasers, ‘Blood Red’ is a swirling and invigorating mix of jagged guitars and frenetic drums, and from the word ‘go’ gives us a very clear indication of what to expect from ‘Sticks and Stones’: it’s dark post-punk meets proto-goth, c.1982 style.
No messing about, track two is the eponymous ‘Sticks and Stones’, which tumbles about in 6/4 timing, swaying back and forth punch-drunk between spaces formerly traversed by Sex Gang Children, Christian Death, and Australia’s reluctant godfathers to the “New-Super-Death-Tribe”, The Birthday Party. This song, like the previous track, accurately signals that Olhaberry’s drumming will be a highlight throughout the album, while Matt Judge gives it some classic goth-punk bass-with-Chorus-pedal. Andi Lennon assumes lead vocals for the verses, taking apparent cues from the camp, schlocky, glam-inspired styling of Andi Sexgang, Rozz Williams, Edward Ka-Spel and the like, along with forerunners such as Bowie and The Sweet. He provides a theatrical counterpoint to Ant Banister’s usually stern and booming baritone, which returns for the choruses. Lyrically, ‘Sticks and Stones’ seems to comment on classism, with Lennon’s character vocal parodying the socio-cultural elite, while Banister’s response is to adopt the impassioned howl of the underdog. By way of an outro, bass and drums begin to lurch off-kilter and eventually collapse into a drunken heap on the floor. It feels like the song’s only logical conclusion.
‘I Hide in Sleep’ continues down the path of spiky post-punk guitars and propulsive rhythms, if perhaps only a little less persuasively than the tracks before it: two very tough acts to follow. Lennon assumes bass duties here, while Ant Banister and Tommy Webster share the guitars. There’s a sparse and meandering feel that calls The Danse Society’s ‘We’re So Happy’ to mind, along with an absence of resolution that almost feels intentional – as if abandoned Joy Division jam sessions and the unfinished Southern Death Cult LP were deliberate points of reference. The results feel spontaneous, transitory, ephemeral and organic. ‘Impossible Dreams’ is effectively a Banister solo effort, and offers a bit more gusto in the form of menace and gravitas, thanks to some bigger rhythm guitars, this time jointly handled by Ant and Andi. But it’s track 5 that brings us back to the real standout material.
A well-timed change in pace, ‘The Life of the Just’ builds from brooding disquiet to moments of epic grandeur, making for one of the album’s biggest anthems. Pitter-patter toms join with a melodic bass, composed by original bassist Pajuczok and executed on record by Judge. Synths make their first and only notable appearance on the album, adding to the overall soar and swell. Their presence also highlights just how far the band’s sound has progressed away from the synth-heavy ‘dark new wave’ colours of their earliest output, opting instead for a direction that now feels irretrievably ‘real’ and definitive. Once again, Lennon and Banister share vocal roles, which (for me) is often where Sounds Like Winter are at their strongest. Banister’s voice is often arbitrarily compared to that of Ian Curtis, which isn’t wholly inaccurate. But hidden in those cavernous depths there are also towering melodic heights, and (I think) some lesser-noted similarities to a crooning Dave Vanian. When he wants to, and especially with Andi as a foil, Ant can open up and sing with more feeling than affectation, proving that there’s a lot more to this vocalist than the barking monotone we’ve come to expect from Aussie post-punk.
If my referencing The Birthday Party earlier seemed premature or unwarranted, you’ll be right back on board with me by the time you hear the opening strains of ‘Television Dream’. The band’s debts to Australian swamprock are repaid in full here, in consideration of a large down payment made with 2015’s ‘Ishmael’s Bones’ single. Andi on bass brings all the requisite bump n’ grind for some proper Southern Gothic swagger. His guitar interplay with long-time wingman Tommy Webster shows unbridled affection for one of post-punk’s greatest guitar duos, Rowland S. Howard and Mick Harvey, while Tish’s ‘neo-tribal’ goth-punk backbeat is a hair’s breadth from inciting screeches of “Release the Bats!!” Although ‘Television Dream’ doesn’t particularly blaze any new trails, it is a fitting tribute to the band’s uniquely antipodean place in the world of dark post-punk, and is yet another immediate standout track for me. Banister’s hammed-up vocal meanwhile catalogues the increasing sense of apathy and detachment experienced by a (presumably chronically depressed) couch potato, which is at once pitifully sad and disturbingly funny.
There are still no lulls in sight as the band launch into their cover of ‘Gritar’ (translation: ‘Scream’) by Los Estómagos; a cult post-punk band from Uruguay, active from 1983-89. The SLW take on the track stays true to the spirit of the original, albeit benefiting from access to better production, while also being electrified and fuel-injected with an abrasive, droning, almost robotic quality to the bass and guitar riffs. It’s like synthpunk, without the synths. Valiantly delivered by Banister in the original Español, cynics might be forgiven for viewing the cover as a ‘smart move’; given the levels of support South American audiences are showing for bands like SLW right now. Any such assumptions of mercenary motives can quickly be dispensed with, however: Olhaberry hails from Uruguay herself, and there are absolutely zero bucks to be had from pandering to the love-rich/cash-poor South American goth/punk/deathrock demographic. ‘Gritar’ is clearly a warm and heartfelt tribute, both to those communities and to Tish’s own unique musical heritage, in the same sense that ‘Television Dream’ pays respect to her bandmates’ roots in swampy Australiana. An accompanying video montage compiles global scenes of riotous protest action, turning the ‘scream’ of ‘Gritar’ up several notches: a call to action and revolt. Here is a band that wants you to know whose side they’re on.
‘Plastic’ returns to ‘gothic disco’ territory, with its marriage of gritty, monochromatic guitars to propulsive, precisely executed rhythm. It’s a suitable backdrop for Banister’s lyrical treatise on the systemic artifice and drudgery that we find ourselves unwittingly chained to, aptly delivered in the barely duotonic vocal range of an enraged automaton. Lyrics as socio-political commentary can often lack subtlety and nuance, however, and the dangers of slightly daggy overstatement and browbeating are perhaps most evident on ‘Plastic’. Nevertheless, these recurrent themes are among the major highlights of this album overall for me, and ‘Plastic’ also goes to show just how deftly the rest of the record has found its away around those pitfalls. Things pick up in the choruses with more visceral, dissonant guitar lines and crashing cymbals, widening the song’s occasionally narrow trajectory. An uncharacteristically artificial feel to the drum track for ‘Plastic’ is perhaps also a cleverly placed Easter egg.
‘Beasts of England’ is the band’s own adaptation of the ‘theme song’ and other key elements and phrases lifted directly from Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’, with Lennon assuming the lead vocalist role again; a very good fit for the song’s already Sexgang-esque title. Once again, we’re left in little doubt as to the band’s stance on social inequality and injustice. Perhaps more than any other song on ‘Sticks and Stones’, ‘Beasts of England’ could almost be an Andi Lennon solo track. But it’s also one of the album’s strongest showcases of what a great guitar duo he and Webster made, alternating between staccato rhythmic stabbing sounds and duelling melodies.
‘New Hebrides’ revisits some of the staggering-about, syncopated rhythmic cycles established with ‘Sticks and Stones’ and ‘Television Dream’, this time with nods to the Banshees’ ‘Staircase Mystery’, replete with the handclaps. And this time it’s (slide down the) Banister rather than Lennon whose vocal characterisation evokes some pseudo-Dickensian pantomime villain, an exaggerated parody of I don’t know what… snot-nosed imperialism? Delayed, scratchy guitars (think Mask-era Daniel Ash) close the frame, bringing an end to the whole album; it is both abrupt and lingering at once, in that pensive, anti-climactic, ‘left wanting more’ sense. And that’s definitely not a bad feeling to leave your listeners with, either.
Perhaps the album’s only real flaw is that by the time we get to the last three tracks, it feels as though it might have peaked a bit too early. But much like ending too soon, that’s really not such a terrible problem for an album to have, especially in light of the many highlights packed into the first three-quarters of ‘Sticks and Stones’. Repeated listens also reveal that ‘Beasts of England’ and ‘New Hebrides’ are real growers, and that not every song needs to pack all of the punch and immediacy that characterises so much of this record.
Moreover, with their second album, Sounds Like Winter feel as though they’ve truly found their feet, both musically and philosophically. Banister’s leadership is as strong as it is malleable, allowing the core members he’s amassed around him to consolidate into a truly dynamic and cohesive unit. Together, he and Lennon emerge as an excellent songwriting partnership, while Olhaberry proves utterly vital to pushing their sound forward. The fluid bass and guitar roles of Lennon, Judge, Webster and Pajuczok meanwhile add to that ‘dynamic but cohesive’ ebb and flow of the album, without ever feeling inconsistent.
‘Sticks and Stones’ reveals a band that has forged for itself an unmistakable sense of identity and purpose. The album is confident and uncompromising in its direction, telling you precisely where they stand and exactly where they’re headed, and it doesn’t so much implore you to join them as it does present you with two very clear options: there’s the horizon, that’s where we’re going – you can come too, or you can stay right where you are and continue to get fucked.
‘Sticks and Stones’ is available now (digital download or CD orders) from Sounds Like Winter on bandcamp. CDs begin shipping out from Monday, and a vinyl LP version will be available around 10 weeks from now, through Fundamental Illness Records.
