Straight Arrows
Rising
HoZac Records [2014]
Fire Note Says: Australian garage rockers with plenty of fuzz and lots of actual tunes!
Album Review: This Australian based band led by Own Penglis is guaranteed to jump to the head of the garage rock class with their sophomore album, Rising. Rising is kind of album that jumps out of your speakers and immediately calls attention to itself, and as the record plays, you realize that this isn’t your ordinary garage rock album. Sure it’s got the fuzz, the distortion, the guitars, and the attitude, but what it has more than anything else is tunes, and that is precisely what separates them from the pack.
Fittingly, “Introduction” opens the album, it’s a quietly strummed guitar, with some hum in the background that continues to get louder before abruptly ending and exploding into “Fruit of the Forest”. The album is sequenced beautifully, as one rock gem flows straight into the next. There isn’t a dud on the album, at its worst it is very good, and at its best like on “Make Up Your Mind”, “Breakdown”, “Never Enough” and “Changing Colours” it becomes a record that is on the short list for top 20 album of the year territory. This is hazy, psychedelic music that sounds filtered through and old drive in speaker, in other words, it’s perfect. This is the sound that other bands will be trying to recreate and capture from this point forward.
Rising is the kind of music that will shake you out of your humdrum life. It is music to move to, to dance to, to rock out to, to drink to, to raise a rock fist in the air out your car window as you are freedom cruising on your way home from work on a Friday afternoon. This is the good stuff, often imitated, but seldom duplicated. When a band is this good, just let the music do the talking. I could carry on endlessly about each particular song and why I like it, but why don’t you just take my word for it and get yourself a copy.
Key Tracks: “Never Enough” / “Fruit of the Forest” / “Make Up Your Mind”
Artists With Similar Fire: White Fence / Ty Segall / Blank Pages
Straight Arrows Website
Straight Arrows Facebook
HoZac Records
– Reviewed by Kevin Poindexter
Born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, I am extremely proud of the area I grew up in and the influence it has had on the world at large, from the Wright Brothers to Robert Pollard, the area has been a center of innovation both technologically and artistically. During my college years at the University of Dayton, I found myself becoming more and more immersed in the local music scene, a period of time in the early to mid 90's that coincided with the rise of bands like Guided by Voices, Brainiac, and The Breeders, who added to the rich musical legacy of the area. Dayton is also the hometown of many giants of funk in the 70's and is also the birthplace of Jazz greats Billy Strayhorn, John Scofield and Bud Shank. I wrote extensively for The Fire Note, a great online magazine focused on indie rock, in the 2010's while simultaneously being a partner in Rockathon Records, before retiring from both in 2018. In 2024, my thoughts turned back to helping at Rockathon and more importantly to pick back up on my writing, and more specifically to write about my love of jazz. I'm always listening, always searching for something new, something great. It's been a lifelong journey, and I still feel like there is so much out there to hear.
- Kevin Poindexterhttps://thefirenote.com/author/kpoindexter/
- Kevin Poindexterhttps://thefirenote.com/author/kpoindexter/
- Kevin Poindexterhttps://thefirenote.com/author/kpoindexter/
- Kevin Poindexterhttps://thefirenote.com/author/kpoindexter/
