This is rated seven bottles. These fuckers (a reformed Sydney band from the '80s) have no right being this good.
Blue Oyster Cult? Yeah!
MC5? Yeah!!
Iggy? OH SHIT YEAH!
Well, that’s my job done then. That’ll be $500 bucks in used tenners in a brown paper bag.
[silence]
[crickets chirping]
… you lot still here?
Oh, all right then.
Apart from the above, which is obvious on the face of “Get Some’” you need to know this is not only a damned fine EP, it is essential if you’ve ever enjoyed the above bands. And not because Mushroom Planet sound like any of ‘em - they don’t.
First, each of the songs have a distinctively different aspect, because Mushroom Planet’s palette is quite broad. In fact, the principal songwriter, Scott Spillane (a hard-boiled guitar player and occasional Chicago gumshoe, I expect) should be well proud of his three songs and two co-writing credits on a six-track.
No two songs are “samey”, each are considerably different, and whilst driving over pedestrians in the shopping centre carpark you hardly notice the thuds, bumps and occasional howl. “Get Some” automatically replays, and replays and replays, and it takes quite some time to extract myself from the carpark and onto the road again, sirens mewling behind me.
Second, well, there’s so many second things it’s a bit difficult to know where to begin. See, there’s thousands of musicians out there. But only hundreds get better at writing and delivering songs as they get older - particularly songs which don’t really sound like they’re mimicking themselves.
Or their influences. You can certainly hear the B.O.C. in here. And Rip’s voice is well and truly in Ig at his most powerful (I maintain Ig’s voice got better as he got older - bicker amongst yourselves, I’ll wait). The MC5, well without them this EP wouldn’t exist.
It’s damned huge. Marc Scully’s production is crisp and smart, the guitars have extraordinary abrasion to them, like aural sandpaper. Rip’s voice is given the treatment all right - you can not only hear him perfectly, you can hear the man’s control.
“Get Some” is fucking huge. Harass the band and force them to tour. I repeat, not every old fart band is capable of this … it’s not a “return to form”, it’s a fucking cruise missile out of the atmosphere, over Japan and smack into LA.
Get some Mushroom Planet. You’ll be glad you did.
