Equal parts thrilling and wistfully melancholic, Melbourne five-piece Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever are that rare beast: a band capable of breathing excitement back into a too often uninspiring indie scene. While the individual elements of their sound - the melodic nous of their compatriots the Go-Betweens, the dynamism of the Strokes before they went rubbish, the jangle of 1980s-vintage Flying Nun – are nothing new, it’s been a long time since they have been whipped up into such a fresh-sounding confection.
Their full-length debut, Hope Downs, is released this week and represents a huge leap forward from last year’s already impressive French Press EP. Guitar lines from their three singer-songwriters, Tom Russo, Joe White and Fran Keaney, interweave and interlock more intoxicatingly, like a turbo-charged Television - most notably on kinetic opener An Air Conditioned Man and recent single Talking Straight - and there’s a greater urgency to the delivery throughout.
They’ve widened their perspective lyrically too. Beneath the breezy melodies, the protagonists of their vividly depicted vignettes are now seen through the prism of our tumultuous times. As Russo puts it: “The songs on this album are like a collection of postcards about wider things that were going on through the lens of these small characters.”
As engaging live as on record, Rolling Blackouts CF might be just the band to fall in love with this summer.
- Hope Downs (Sub Pop) is released on 15 June. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever play the Green Man festival in August and tour the UK in October
