THE MODEL SCHOOL – MEMORY WALLS
Memory Walls is, in many ways, a dorky album. The Model School (Sydney) play a synth-laden variety of slacker guitar-pop, the kind where the singing is always a little off-key and a little droll, whether it’s Wixted’s lead or the band backing him up. Similarly, the songs are nostalgic and surreal, well-marbled with strips of absurd humour and pathos (“I’m a plastic bag blowing backwards on the wind”, delicious!). The band’s sense of irony even penetrates their arrangements; for instance, it’s difficult to tell if the feel-good single This Is Not My Town is a jab at stadium synth-pop or a low-budget version of the real thing. Not that it poses a hurdle to enjoyment. Deep-cuts We’re All Gonna Die, Waiting For Nothing and Circles are just as great, addictive songs steering the back-end of the album in to more plaintive, atmospheric territory. But It’s Hard To Dance When Your Legs Are On Fire is the sleeper hit: driving beat, acoustic guitar strums, a catchy refrain and a seriously groovy guitar solo to bring it all home. The most impressive thing about Memory Walls is that, for their genre-hopping, the album is held together by a band doing interesting things with instruments and clearly having fun. The best glue, and thus a band to watch.
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