Friday, March 16, 2007

The Nation Blue - Protest Songs

Tell ya what, it's nice to have a bit of anger in music. From Ground Components through Batrider and Witch Hats to Die! Die! Die!, there's plenty of raucous fury in Melbourne music at the moment.

But The Nation Blue have been doing it longer than any of them. To get some sense of the band, their three album titles are A Blueprint for Modern Noise, Damnation and now, the latest: Protest Songs. They're touring with, nah seriously, Helmet.

They're three angry men who rock huge and burning, like caring isn't out of style. Listen to this track, from Protest Songs, and tell me they don't know what's going on. It's got a deep-down detuned drive, huge guitars and Tom Lyngcoln's screams - apt to tear your head off so hang on.

[mp3 - 4MB] The Nation Blue - Sedition from Protest Songs

OK, maybe The Rodent's sedition laws are an easy target ("making fun of a pollie? that's a paddlin'") but fuck they do it well. It's actual real rock without too much of the roll, coming at it from the heavy end of the scale though keeping it way tuneful and even catchy. This stuff, I understand, is less hard-core than the previous recordings (which I missed). It's rock, now, but with so much weight behind the riffs, and then so much restraint in between.

[mp3 - 8MB] The Nation Blue - Devils in Oil from Protest Songs

And so much lyrical substance through it, a message and philosophy which seems strangely rare in Oz rock at the moment. I love Dallas Crane's party-rock after dark at Meredith but sometimes you need some true feeling and that's what The Nation Blue give ya.

Listen to those tracks and then get out there and get the album, it's the best Oz release of the year thus far. And then see them, either touring with Helmet in a couple of weeks, or breaking minds in their special own way across Oz:

30th March - National Hotel, Geelong
31st March - Cherry Bar, Melbourne
7th April - Crown and Anchor, Adelaide
12th April - Oxford Tavern, Wollongong
13th April - Spectrum, Sydney
14th April - Northern Star, Newcastle
20th April - Columbian Bar, Brisbane
21st April - Coolangatta Hotel, Coolangatta
24th April - The Tote, Melbourne

[buy Protest Songs direct from Casadeldisco Records]
[visit the boys at their myspace]

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