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ALFALFA MALES ONCE SUMMER IS DONE CONFORM OR DIE - Hard-Ons (The Cool Bananas Records Company)
That the Hard-Ons are still together, let alone making albums, will come as a surprise to some people. They ought to get out more. That they're making records that are better than those released at the peak of their late '80s popularity will come as an even bigger shock. Big call, but bear with me.
Yes, they're a different band from the old one. Keish may be retired, if not forgotten, and sure, he did write and sing the bulk of their best-loved songs. Their "new" drummer Peter Kostic may not pack the same swing in his kitbag, but he's no slouch either. And if the heavy hand of venue officialdom (and a good dose of commonsense) have put paid to Ray's on-stage fire-breathing that was stock-in-trade for a long time, that's fine.
There's been a steady stream of long-players since the band re-formed and like hyperactive teens on school holidays they've bounced from hardcore ("Most People Are Nicer Than Us") to sublime pop-punk ("Very Exciting") and all parts in-between. "Alfalfa Males" mixes both kinds of Hard-On and puts paid to just about any other kid on the block, new or old.
Hard-Ons records used to be sprinkled with great songs plus wads of filler. They weren't always well produced. "Alfalfa Males"has great songs and production and adds a dose of wigged-outness that permeated "This Terrible Place", the 2000 "comeback" album. This album - and the band - are simply more consistent without being predictable. No easy juggling act.
There are 19 songs and a fair few are brief blasts of noxious hardcore or speed metal. "Alfalfa Males" turns on the head of a pin with awe-inspiring manoeuvrability, but the Hard-Ons can't resist a good hook and there are plenty of them.
You can probably put all the healthy experimentation that you'll hear down to Ray and Blackie's other life as Nunchukka Superfly, which is as off-the-wall as Australian rock and roll gets without being run out of town.
Hardcore tackles pop and on my scorecard, pop wins by a whisker. "Feisty", "I'm a Frozen Boy" and "Give Me Arse a Haircut" ensure as much, while "In The End We All Die Alone" flicks the switch to speedcore to balance the books. Chalk one up to weirdness and the Channel Nine cricket commentary team on "The Media Frenzy That Followed". Maybe the memory is failing but I can't recall a rockabilly rave-up in Hard-Ons clothing quite like "Atomic Handshake".
The Hard-Ons used to be demeaned back in the '80s for being sexist. Is is sexist to say that the poppy "Pretend It's Vanilla" and its do-do-do-do chorus will charm the panties off your girlfriend, whereas trhe speed-metal "Burn Everything" will have her putting them back on to run out the door. The former is my tip for Song Of The Year. ARIA indepedent song award, anyone? It's never too late. – The Barman
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MOST PEOPLE ARE NICER THAN US - Hard Ons (Chatterbox)
Saying there's life left in the beast is a monumental understatement. Ditto the revelation that this album is hard. "Nicer Than Us" is uncompromising hardcore and punk thrash. Downstroke delight. It's sounds so tough that death itself couldn't kill it. Why will be revealed soon, but first some perspective.
For a time in the late '80s, the Hard Ons were the essence of perfect punk pop. Hugely popular in Europe and blessed with a rabid following at home in Australia, attending (and surviving) their riotous shows was a rite of passage. It ground to a halt at the dawn of the '90s, but didn't we have a good time. Spin-off Nunchukka Superfly was a stunning by-product, and way too left-field for many of the old hands to keep up with.
Re-animated half a decade ago, the Hard Ons found their old fan-base had hocked their souls for mortgages. The kids were no longer such and had offspring of their own. So the Hard Ons did what any still vibrant and self-respecting punk band from the '80s would. They built a new following.
While a lot of us are guilty as charged on the mortgage-and-spawn-front, the Hard Ons have changed too. Keish's walked away from the drumming and vocal duties (although he rejoined briefly for a big run of anniversary shows) and his successor on the kit Peter Kostic brings a different dynamic to the band. Blackie handles guitar and most vocals. Ray Ahn remains the throbbing bass heart of the thing, his hair and his dervish head swirling antics both still intact.
I'm still playing catch-up on the recent back catalogue. I heard bits of the output but lost touch as the Hard Ons rolled out three albums before this. The first ("This Terrible Place") probably found them in no man's land and finding their feet, but consensus on the last ("Most People Are a Waste of Time") was that they were back to their pop-punk best.
Like a pendulum on an axis going in the opposite direction, "Most People Are Nicer Than Us" pushes the Hard Ons into hardcore territory. Emphatically so. And it hits with the impact of a 'roids raging National Rugby League forward on his way to his lawyer to settle out-of-court on the morning after end-of-season celebrations on Mad Monday.
"Bottom Feeders", with a bouncy Blackie guitar line and chorus to match, might be the most familiar touchpoint for old fans. But it's the naked attention-seekers - the spiralling, breakneck speed demons like "You Sir, Can Fuck Off" and "Making Money From Goths Is Fun" - that create mayhem. These two especially have that thing happening where the underlying harmonics feed to give the sound an unearthly quality.
"Carrot Top" is stunning thrash-punk. You can almost hear Ray Ahn's tonsils hit the studio wall with his vocal on "Don't Fear The Reeperbahn". Blackie's guitar carries the day on "My Style of Attack". The sole respite from this attack (if that's how you regard it before it climbs out of the sludge into a fully-fledged freak-out) is "Spent The Day In Hell, Was Bored") where overdriven guitars emulate a massed choir.
Blackie sings most of the album and occasionally veers just this side of death metal distortion in places, but did you really expect the Vienna Boys Choir?
The more you get into this record the more apparent it becomes that the lines between the Hard Ons and Nunchukka Superfly sometimes blur, to the extent that the bellyflop howl of "Two Laps in Serbia" could belong to either band. Truth be told, it's the Hard Ons who seem to be consciously moving their own goalposts around and not conforming (I'm hypothesizing that Nunchukka Superfly exists on its own because it has no goalposts, full stop.)
Hardcore, I can usually take or leave. Same with most of the trappings of metal. But the Hard Ons have absorbed them, transcended their limitations, and are truly carving a unique sonic path.
If I sound happily amazed that this album's so good it's for two reasons: I wasn't paying close enough attention. And it is. –
The Barman
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