You can’t really fault the DMA’s dedication to being the Australian Oasis. They’ve adopted the sportswear, the monotone Liamesque sneer and the mid-paced trudge that was Oasis’s default musical setting. They’ve even roped in former Oasis producer Mark “Spike” Stent to mix their debut album. For all that, though, Hills End doesn’t call to mind Oasis so much as that wave of Liverpudlian groups who preceded them – the likes of the Real People or Top, each of whom had a couple of terrific songs, but lacked the spark the Gallaghers brought to the world’s most straightforward musical concoction. Hills End doesn’t bludgeon you, proffering instead something more restrained. Guitars are used for arpeggios as much as for barre chords, and at times, as on Straight Dimensions, with its aqueous lead guitar line overlying a restless chord pattern, they’re more reminiscent of the delicious pop of New Zealand’s Flying Nun label in the early 80s; in fact, only Too Soon and Lay Down come near to roaring like Oasis. Hills End is workmanlike, which is both its strength and its drawback: everything is in the right place, but who was ever overwhelmed by competence?
