The Strike-Outs – The Strike-Outs (Evil Tone Records)

The debut LP by Sydney duo The Strike-Outs is the duck’s nuts, the bees’ knees and all the other animal physiology that lies between. Twelve songs in 24 minutes, so brevity is at its core. But so are dynamics. a feral energy and a musicality that divorces it from standard two-chord thrash punk.

The Strike-Outs-are brothers Simon Vines on guitar and vocals and Adam Vines on drums. They used to be Thee Evil Twin until they shed a bassist. No bottom end? No problem. Simon’s tone and a kick drum high in the mix compensate just fine.

“Overflown” kicks things into gear right away and is a cousin of the MC5’s “Black to Comm” - which is to say it’s a riff in search of a song. It sets things up nicely for the pummelling that follows.  

Of course, The Strike-Outs do have songs and they’re good ‘uns. The 45, “37 Moves”, is one of them. IT announces its entrance with fuzzy dissonance before ramping into sonic full top gear with its stream-of-consciousness lyrics:

It doesn’t matter if your head’s full of snot
I’m playing chickens with a robot
It doesn’t matter because it happens quite a lot
Getting overtaken by a robot

OK, pilgrim aren’t , while that's not exactly Dylanesque, if you worry excessively about these things you’re probably in the wrong Bar. So here's the filmclip to rub it in: 

“Cutting Corners” is (slightly) more complex fare with a well-defined hook while “Undid” and “Hexed” pare things back to basics and chomp away on cast-iron riffs. When it comes to direct putdowns, “Shut The Fuck Up” doesn’t have many rivals and it’s a stand-out track. It’s also a cover from New Orleans punks Buck Biloxi and the Fucks who are worth checking out on Bandcamp.

If you’re looking for social commentary, “Elon’s Planet” will probably suffice (“I don’t want to live on Elon’s planet”) and besides being inarguable, it nicely presages the closing barrage of “This Isn’t Right” and “We’re All Fucked”.  Some online jokester made a comment that the record had a positive side and a negative one, and it’s hard to argue on the strength of this dénouement.

Someone said that The Strike-Outs are Sydney’s loudest band. If my own stinging ears hadn’t been enough to testify to such after a few gigs, a recent encounter when they played a support at The Crowbar sealed the deal. What was going to be a brief spell in the upstairs green room anyway raised concerns for the integrity of the building, such was the level of sound making it up through the floor so I scurried down to make sure all was right.   

Back to the LP and the boys are painting with a limited palette so this album could have lapsed into monotony. It doesn’t because Simon has enough tonal variation in his mostly double-tracked guitar toolbox to keep it interesting, Adam plays with swing and they both know how to make a case without turning a song into a marathon.

The production at Jay Whalley’s Pet Food Factory in Marrickville is live and brazen, and reflects what The Strike-Outs do live. There are just 150 copies pressed on the old vinyl and in this instance it does make a difference. Let Bandcamp be your saviour here or check out the label's own shop here.

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