Last Quokka
Wake Up Geoff
Stock Records/Mass Prod (FR)
Perth’s politicos Last Quokka are back with another healthy dose of riotous and wry punk noise. Wake Up Geoff arrives as the latest single to be taken off their upcoming fourth album, scheduled to be released in August via Stock Records and Mass Prod (FR).
Recorded and mixed by Stu McLaughlan at Hopping Mouse Studios, the song strikes the balance between serious and sardonic that all excellent Australian punk rock does: it’s written as a sly serenading of former WA Premier Geoff Gallop, with witty lines like “Geoff Gallop back into my heart”; he might not have been perfect (no politician is), Last Quokka admit, but he represents a better figure than the ones we have to deal with now.
The song drifts just over two minutes and what precedes it is a fast fusion of unrelenting energy and biting satire. The guitar riffs reverberate, the clever lyrics resound. Last Quokka bill themselves as ‘the anti-fascist punk band from the most isolated city on the planet’ and the statement rings true. Perth, the lone star in Australia’s west, is now even more alone with the COVID-19 pandemic. Isolation breeds anger; isolation brings contempt. What’s vital is that Last Quokka channel these feelings into such powerful and raucous punk anthems.
The single follows the release of previous favourites Privilege and Colony, and all three follow the same smart pattern, with pounding punk rhythm driving the acerbic lyrical assaults on Australian’s systemic issues. Consider the lyrics on Colony: “We live on sacred land/ But you’re burning it to the ground/ Not my motherland/ This union jack’s a nazi stamp”. Colonialism is a scourge, and their songwriting acknowledges it as fact. Their lyrics say nothing new, exactly, but they still need to be said over and over.
Watch out Scotty, the full album’s bound to be a cracker.
CONOR LOCHRIE
