The leader hails from an old coal mining town called Helensburgh so it's fitting that these seven songs are supposedly cast-off rocks from the band named Leadfinger. Excess to the forthcoming album's requirements all but one of them may be, but they collectively make an EP that's anything but throwaway.
Leadfinger - the band and the man - are well established in their nook of the rapidly shrinking Australian underground. If they're the last people left in the room you'd trust them to stubbornly resist the order to turn off the lights. These songs crackle with the conviction of a band entirely comfortable in its collective musical skin. They swagger and they rock and they're a lot of fun. From the gritty (and larynx-testing) "Poor Man's Boogie" to the strident power popping Replacements-flavoured rock of "Pretty Thing", to the testosterone honesty of "Behind The Wall Of Sleep", these are songs to crank at maximum volume while cruising down the highway bound for the beach.
There's a lot of late '70s British working man rock here with no excess flash. You even get a legit buried treasure in the cover of Chris Wilson's "All The Action", a long-lost follow-up to "Shake Some Action" that's delivered with deference and aplomb. Political comment with a seasonal twist ("Left Wing Yule"), gnarly pop-rock ("Laser Love") and a evocatively mellow sleeper ("Indians") all show off Stew Cunningham's distinctive guitar and rich voice. The band is up to the job. Trust men on this one.
The physical product is limited to 100 copies and you'll find the last stock here. As they say in the classics, once they're gone they're a download. Fuck that for a joke. Get in before the EP's reduced to a mere MP3.
