Review Summary: Scrub yourself, you filthy whore!!
Brazen, dumb and romping, Aborted Tortoise’s
An Beach is another winsome entry in Oz’ blistering garage scene. The snotty quintet from Perth are soaked and soldered in DIY punk sensibilities, and their music is similarly primitive, an album to put on at a backyard party, beer sloshing in your sclera, a skip fermenting in your step, and irked neighbours running for the phone.
Everything about
An Beach pulses inside an airtight box. The rhythm section is an uninterrupted stretch of forward momentum. The guitars walk a perfect middle-line between the sleazy distortion of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and the clean-shaven jib that Jack White trades in. The solos come often, but never linger; neurotic and taut, they skulk in and out, leaving a pleasant hollow twitch in your left ear. And the lyrics, crude, trashy and often babbling, half-spoken, half-shouted, seal it all off with a kiss and a jab between the ribs.
The garage package of
An Beach does at times betray Aborted Tortoise’s lurking ambition. For music whose entire mindset is meant to be contained within a savage bash, this thing is swirling in shifting time signatures, odd stops and some damn good songwriting. The economical nature of the album bumps
An Beach another notch up the bracket. It’s a short and fun affair, with most songs clocking in at less than two minutes. And Aborted Tortoise get plenty done within the time constraints. “Fashionably Late,” the incredibly bratty “No Skin,” and the hoppy “Responsibilities” all detonate happily.
The band do crack out of the garage at points. The bouncy, sun-drenched swing of “Wasted Goods” pulls them close to West Coast pop-punk territory. “Spewin’ McGregor” is a by-the-numbers surf instrumental, albeit one bolstered by sharp guitar and unwashed energy. The murky bass-line and anxious drums that usher in prolonged closer “Crumple Zone” edge on hardcore ethos for a moment, before settling back into mid-tempo garage buzz. That mode becomes them. This sort of music is a hermetic hive, one that ultimately doesn’t call for needless experimentation. It may not vary much, but gets where it’s going in grand fashion, smashes in, ticks every primordial indulgence in your brain, and then jumps out the window and into the night.
