Making a big long name for themselves from Down Under
Melbourne serves up yet another winner with Rolling Blackouts C.F.
What’s the deal? If, like me, you’ve not yet made it to Australia and have built most of your imaginings of the Antipodean landscape upon the wide-open chug and jangle of the myriad, awesome guitar bands that nation has consistently exported (and occasionally kept secret from the rest of the world) since the punk era and have not yet encountered Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, you might want to sit down before your first listen — because you’re gonna freak and might pass out from sheer excitement.
Rolling Blackouts C.F., as they’re often referred to by the cool kids, genuinely sound like all of your favourite Aussie guitar enthusiasts all at once: the Go-Betweens, the Church, Radio Birdman, the Easybeats and such present-day contempo- raries in Melbourne — a city which, as Pitchfork noted in a review of RBCF’s 2016 debut EP, Talk Tight, “seems to produce more great guitar bands per capita than any other city in the world” (save maybe Manchester, but that’s for another discussion) — as rock-’n’-roll “power couple” Courtney Barnett and Jen Cloher, with a bit of Flying Nun influence see ping in from New Zealanders like the Clean, the Chills, the Bats and Straitjacket Fits to boot.
And also with a healthy dose of Dire Straits, My Bloody Valentine, Electr-o-Pura/Painful
era Yo La Tengo and even, on the band’s killer 2017 single from its French Press EP, a little Blue Oyster Cult on top of all that. See what I mean? All your favourites in one. Really. Nuts. Beyond the faultless recorded output, Rolling Blackouts C.F. is a killer live band, a five-piece semi-family band — there are two cousins and two brothers in the lineup — that passes the microphone and the songwriting chores around democratically, Sloan-style, and translates that casual, ego-less symbiosis onstage into effortlessly fluid playing.
They were one the most impressive acts this writer caught at the tastemaking South by Southwest festival in Austin in 2017 and I look very much forward to seeing them again. As you might have already gathered. Sum up what you do in a few simple sentences. RBCF sum up what they do in just a single, simple sentence collectively expressed by the band members at three words apiece: “We play soft-punk/ tough-pop songs about tiny characters living inside a big universe.” What’s a song I need to hear right now? “Talking Straight.” The first single from Rolling Blackouts C.F.’s new record, Hope Downs — due June 15 via the venerable Sub Pop Records label — is a driving/shimmering janglerock anthem fit for both driving and ... shimmering. Where can I see them play? May 8, at the Garrison, where they are performing with Kiwi Jr. and Ducks Unlimited.
Sit down before your first listen … you might pass out from sheer excitement