Double Negative – The Strike Outs (Evil Tone Records/Farmer and The Owl)
If you’ve seen Sydney duo The Strike-Outs in the flesh, you’ll know they do not fuck around. The way they open their second album, “Double Negative”, is proof positive.
“Johnny” is a Chuck Berry-inspired instrumental (one of two on the album) that steamrollers out of the speakers, driven by Adam Vines’ industrial-strength backbeat and brother Simon’s squawling, Thunders-without-the-slop, guitar attack.
It goes for the throat and does not let up – and that’s the story of the album in a nutshell. The band sneers and soars through another 10 songs (including a killer cover of “Motherfucking Motherfucker” by Bored!) that launch, one after each other, like Exocet missiles.
The dictionary says a double negative occurs when two negative words or grammatical constructions are used in the same sentence: “Depending on the language and context, the second negative can either cancel out the first to create a positive meaning, or it can reinforce the negative, making it more emphatic”.
The Strike-Outs own "emphatic". Their songs are mostly about the sordid human condition or personal interraction but they don’t need excessive wordplay to make their points. They also don’t do much light and shade, so don’t expect sonic variation for the hell of it, or massive stylistic U-turns.
Having said that, Fiona Whalley’s guest sax on “Powdered Milquetoast” adds spice to a breakdown that morphs into an outro without altering the band’s path. Melody does poke its head up above the parapet to say hello in “Starting Over” and “Towards The Sun”, which are positively bright spots among the relentless fuzz surge, but if you can’t handle all the Rock Action heat, you're in the wrong kitchen.
The jagged riff of ”Y.O.A.” makes for a Buzzcocks-tinged moment before a spoken word interlude and rap about social inequality provide some breathing space. It’s a killer closer that will have you itching for another spin.
Uncluttered production by Jay Whalley at Sydney's Pet Food Factory allows the band's directness to shine through, and the ubiquitous Mikey Young did the mastering so you know it sounds great.
1/2
