#rbcf

Woah

Village Underground, 17.07.2019

The electricity rolls and rolls

In ‘Julie’s Place’ Fran Keaney puts his “foot through the floor” and this is how a Rolling Blackouts gig rumbles. The band puts its foot down right from the outset and never lets it off the pedal. Sixteen songs to cane it down the motorway to. The four guitars colliding and bouncing off one another in one glorious mosh of dizzying indie pop, as their players rove the stage with the strut of demented chickens. The Melbourne quintet has been likened to their 80s compatriots The Go Betweens, and the jangle is there, but there’s more bite in their exhilarating songs.

 Vocals are shared between Fran and Tom Russo and Joe White. Brother Joe Russo stalks the stage in his cap like a rock version of Elmer Fudd. But these are loony tunes with guile. The crowd is soon popping around like jumping beans and we hit fever pitch with ‘Talking Straight’, as plain an indie anthem as you’ll see.

Only ‘Sister’s Jeans’ from 2018’s debut, Hope Downs, stalls. The release was third in Mojo’s albums of the year. ‘The Hammer’, ‘In The Capital’ and ‘Read My Mind’ all come roaring through, and ‘Sick Bug’ from the French Press EP fires too. Sadly the band’s strongest melody to date, ‘Fountain Of Good Fortune’, suffers from stuttering gear change.

Searchlight beams evoke the Blitz, yet something is awry with the feng shui in the Village Underground, despite the ingenious lighting.  It has the right aesthetic but, like the Tate Modern, the design of the original warehouse means the conversion feels awkward, never entirely comfortable.

On the one hand, much of RBCF’s music continues to be so inoffensive and easy-going that one almost feels obliged to criticise it. And yet it’s also thoroughly difficult to do so. Endless Rooms is again a competently performed, occasionally rather glorious work of indie rock/jangle pop. While it might be rather difficult to remember different tracks, the vibe – joyous, positive, somewhat of its own realm – certainly lingers.

So far as modern jangle/indie pop bands go, there are many far worse than Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. Sideways to New Italy is another record similar to their debut; an insistently pleasant and infectiously summery work full of dancing little guitar lines and indie-boy hooks. RBCF aren’t reinventing the wheel but they’re aren’t trying to: they’re making breezy, upbeat music that never aspires beyond being a congenial, comfy ride but, on at least a couple of occasions, still manages to produce something that stands out from the bunch.