ADJUSTER

Adjuster

THard-edged post-rock from the heart of the Outback.

hrow a rock in Alice Springs and you’ll be hard pushed to hit anyone. What else then might three young men in this arid part of Australia’s Northern Territory do but hunker down in their rehearsal room and conjure up an album of vibrant, hardedged, instrumental post-rock that wouldn’t have sounded out of place ringing around Manhattan in the early 90s.

Imagine Helmet with syncopated rhythms and stuttering time signatures with a truly prog bent and that’s capturing only one aspect of their sound. The dark ambience of Tool also raises its woolly head, which in turn acquiesces to a batch of songs that you’d imagine surfacing on a lost Smashing Pumpkins record. And while they might wear their musical hearts on their sleeves, there’s still room for real invention in the shimmering Cried A Tiger, the tricksy, revolving Waft or the heavy metal thunder of Terminate.

One criticism, if there has to be one, is that some of these songs occasionally sound like they’re crying out for a lead vocal, as if they’re unfinished but for the want of a singer. Then again, maybe that’s just the way they do things in Alice Springs.