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On winding up their former band The Drones five years ago, Melbourne-based Gareth Liddiard and his partner Fiona Kitschin decided rock was “a load of fucking wank”, vowing to “de-wank” their sound with a gloriously sloppy mash-up of vintage electronics, mangled guitar effects, surreal stream-of-consciousness lyrics and relentlessly wonky grooves.
Sounding in places like Sleaford Mods jamming with Flaming Lips, this third Tropical Fuck Storm album is a hot mess of lo-fi noises, ragged vocals and weapons-grade sarcasm, from the dishevelled funk-punk shuffle of G.A.F.F. to the howling free-jazz meltdown that engulfs The Donkey, and the storytelling sprawl of Legal Ghost.
Even if their calculated brand of mullet-haired kitchen-sink amateurism occasionally feels like unshaven drunken shambling, TFS are consistently inventive, thrillingly unpredictable and steeped in deadpan Australian humour.
Fully de-wanked, in other words.
