A massive new album release from Great Australian Bank delivers quite an impactful and vast post-punk and indie rock soundscape that beckons vintage rock and pop songwriting but brings it into a current platform making everything refreshed but also nostalgic at the same time.
The To The Dry album is riddled with a mass amount of character and this sort of cinematic robustness that lets these songs come through almost anthemic half the time and throughout all of this you were able to start piecing together with the record is actually about and as you do that you begin to start thinking that this is actually a concept album of sorts.
The classic mid to late-90s post-punk influences are powerful on this record and they nail the aesthetic of that whole time period and sound by way of their guitar tones and effects because that really helps execute this authentic post-punk feel.
The guitars are packed with these great chorus-like effects that let the sounds and textures of them feel like they're swimming around in the air that surrounds you and that's a big part of that aesthetic.
They combine this heavier guitar tone with a clean one or even an acoustic one half the time and this also helps blend textures and create sort of a balance between color and edginess which is a big part of how this record works.
These songs feel like they could be in the scenes of films, and they have such well-thought-out arrangements but never lose that sort of heart they carry.
The vocal approach is outstanding because it changes a little bit from song to song Sometimes and at times you get that deep-toned swagger packed approach but other times you get these more melodic and harmonious styles with backing vocals that build, and all of these add subtle drive to some of the tracks.
This cinematic aspect comes from that vastness in some of these songs because the guitars and sometimes vocals and even bass can be drenched in a certain level of reverb which makes things feel very distanced and in turn gives the songs this much bigger feel and that's what makes it so addictive and also a big part of why the whole aesthetic works for these guys.
I absolutely love that this is a new record because to me it's like a love letter to the genre and to the bands that influence them.
They take those influences and put them into the music, so it's infused with that classic and almost vintage vibe, but they also give things a little bit of a new spin while still holding to the originals that inspired them.
This to me means the world because you can hear the kinds of stuff that made them all want to become a band in the first place, but they also hold their own and give things their own twist.
They're definitely a lot of choruses and even guitar lines that sort of bounce around for a very long time after the songs have ended and this is an album that you really, honestly should be listening to from beginning to end because listening to one or two tracks will give you a little bit of a gist of what you can expect for sure, but if you listen to the whole record it becomes more of an experience.
It's like watching the trailer for a film or watching the entire film. That's the difference.
Either way, this is an amazing record that captured this sort of nostalgic 90s post-punk element and did so with a little bit of extra edge and heavier tonalities at times, but again still held really true to the bands that made them who they are today.
A beautifully woven record from a band I'm going to be paying a lot more attention to from here on out.
Have a listen to this one today and again, try and do the whole record because it's well worth your time and it's just under 40 minutes so, I think you can do it on the car ride home for example.
This is a record that makes you think about back in the day when people released full albums and what they would sound like.
I would love to have this on vinyl or CD for example.
Anyway, dive into this one today.
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