RETURN OF THE MAGICAL MOLERAT - The Bakelite Age (Spooky Records)
Link “Meanie” McLennan seems to have been a fixture on the Melbourne scene for decades. Wait a minute- he has. His good humour and casual attitude to life might just be a clever front for something steely inside- since the demise of former acts the Meanies and the Tomorrow People he’s kept the Bakelite Age on the rails for a few years now, and now they have managed to produce album number two. And it’s excellent.
Following a label change from In-Fidelity, this has been recorded & produced by Loki Lockwood, as are so many Spooky releases - and if there’s a better, more sympathetic producer working around town right now I’d like to know who it is.
The Bakers (as their friends call them) often seem to be working in a kind of goofy private code, and sometimes the lyrics sound like they were written on acid, but there is no denying the power of this set.
Although their name may conjure up images of art deco radios squawking out Rudy Vallee show tunes, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The sound they summon up ranges from fairly standard garage-y rock to a few darker and deeper moments, and there’s a bracket of three tunes planted smack in the middle of this disc that are as strong, catchy and interesting as anything you’ll hear anywhere else this year.
“Tinker Blues” is full of clanging off-key chords, but comes together every few bars for the choruses. There’s a lazy loping rhythm to “Cooler King”, which is mostly spoken rather than sung, and “Brotherhood of the Bowel” (no, I don’t know what that is, and I don’t really want to, thanks) is a careering bluesy thing.
There’s a lyric sheet/insert to help you decipher what this is all about but frankly I gave up- it’s better to leave it opaque, to snatch a line out here and there where you can- “I feel like Mother Theresa on Guy Fawkes night”, or “ Eeny meeny miney mo, catch a hooker by the toe”, for instance- and just enjoy the squalling of that home made rectangular guitar. - TJ Honeysuckle
