SKINNY JEAN – DOLCE DOGGEREL

Having a name inspired  by a prevalent fashion item and an album sleeve depicting various office items swallowed up by painkiller tablets, this band really will take the listener by surprise with this record. Beginning with a curiously elegiac spiritual chorus, the album then opens its doors to a most intriguing psychedelic folk opera, housing melodies and sounds that hark from across many eras and styles. There are no token disco beats or Robert Smith soundalikes, instead we have a range of bizarre folk rock ranging from the delicate and insidious Amaying to the downright arresting circus of sound in Anhedonia. Lead vocalist Shem Allen has command of this material, howling and wooing his way around the dense and frenetic arrangements. In fact the whole band’s harmonies can, at times, evoke goosebumps with their potency. Occasionally drifting into  spurts of guitar-noise and unified by an intriguing, not oppressive, religious undertone (see Army Wife), these young Brisbanites have constructed something that fulfils the needs of a large group of musical influences, while never drifting from the cohesive whole.

***1/2