Local Perth band Psychedelic Porn Crumpets return with High Visceral Part 2 is as psychedelic and heavy as ever. The group deliver what could basically be summed up as an acid trip on a CD. Littered with interesting lyrics and heavy, lucid guitars, this is a sensational album from a group that is rightfully building a dedicated fan base.
The opening track of the record Nek sets the scene from the off as it tears into some heavy, lucid riff-work. Within the first few seconds of listening to Nek, I was ready to launch into a mosh pit and rip into an outrageous head bang. It takes about a minute for the first lyrics to be heard, starting with “it’s no good saving whales anymore”. The whales have left earth and they have taken all other sea life with them in parcels. The track also delivers a haunting lyric that is repeated, “All we are is dust filling up holes”. It’s a global warming message with some great riffs to support it. Now that’s great music
The second track, Gurzle continues the heavy hitting guitars with an intro that wouldn’t be totally out of place on a Tame Impala record. I’m hearing shades of Impala’s ‘Elephant’ here, albeit much heavier. From there, the song rips into a real heavy rock sound with guitars blaring a-plenty, before soothing a little for the vocals to come in. The song varies in pace, soothing down and then rocketing back into heavy guitar riffs. The theme of the song centers on the comfort of our generation “born into what I call comfortable has drained all the fight from my gut”. Basically, we’re living on a planet that is in need of help, but with all of our technology and easy entertainment, why bother doing anything productive? Let’s just sit around and do nothing and think about getting a job, but not actually bother getting one. It’s a relatable song for the youth of this generation; delivered to us in heavy, high speed, rock form, and who doesn’t want that? I found the vocals on this track were particularly mesmerizing.
As for First Light in the Garden at Chipping, if you’re into Pink Floyd, you’ll love this beautiful track. I can just see myself laying in a field of flowers, watching the clouds morph into all sorts of shapes and letting my brain carry me to wherever it desires. The guitar on this track is gorgeous, psychedelic music at its finest. Not to mention the violin behind the cascading guitar notes. As the title suggests, the song is about watching the sunrise. “Welcome in morning light, now change my frame of mind”. We’re not really talking about morning light here, right? To tell the truth, I love this track so much, I might even set my alarm and watch the sunrise to it.
As said by Jack McEwan, the bands front man, Ergophobia is about the hate of work, inspired by his disdain for his old job on a construction site. The pace lifts again from the previous track and is the heaviest of the album to this point. There’s something about hearing McEwan screaming, “fuck this fuck this, I’m out, I quit!” that is therapeutic. He’s basically singing what we’ve wanted to say to our bosses so many times before. “Man, I don’t get work”, you and I both, Jack. Again, it’s another head-banger that will have mosh pits going haywire right from the first note to the last.
Move is another track I can see Kevin Parker tapping his foot along to. The song has an awkward swagger to it, and there’s a really nice interaction between the drumming and the guitars. It almost feels like something doesn’t quite sound right about it, which makes it all the more enticing. The lyrics of the song remind me of the sort of conversations you have with a friend at the end of a party, sat outside around that big plastic table at every house party (you know the one, right?), high as a kite looking at the stars. It is absolutely otherworldly, which makes sense as McEwan sings about the possibility of other planets, or a “candid land, expand to understand”.
Next up is Buzz, which was one of the final tracks the band worked on for the album. McEwan says that he’d just finished watching Band Of Brothers when he wrote it and was in one of those ‘how bad are humans’ frames of mind. He basically is wondering what humans would look like from an alien ship, fighting each other and doing all of the ridiculous things we do. More heavy stuff, but what I love about this record is that every song sounds so fresh. “I think I’m sticking to my drugs man/ seems like they’re better than/what we’re prescribed to think from day one”. Now that’s certainly one way of thinking about it. The lyrics on this album really do provide so much food for thought. Listening to this track, I was trying to think of what to say in this review, but I couldn’t help but imagine being in an alien ship, watching the allies storm the beaches of Normandy in 1944 and thinking “what are these pathetic creatures doing to each other”.
We’re calming down a lot as we head into Coffee, which is a very nice, relaxing little tune. I can imagine driving in a convertible down a palm tree lined coastal strip pumping this one, with the wind in my hair in the late afternoon sun. This song is perfectly placed. Just as the album was in danger of being a little too heavy for a psychedelic group, it tones it right down perfectly. “Float outside in the fields of gold/where the sunlight meets dandelion”. Although I love the heavy stuff, this is possibly one of my favourite tracks on the album.
Dependent on Mary has a pretty self-explanatory title. McEwan is singing about a tough time in his life when he was living in a barn in Southport and had no phone, no internet and had just ran out of weed. It has a nice little riff that will have you clicking your thumbs to the beat, with a really great guitar solo at the end that sounds like something straight out of Tame Impala’s Lonerism. It’s hard not to make Tame Impala references, which certainly isn’t a bad thing. Psychadelic rock just seems to be something that Perth bands do right.
As said by McEwan himself, It’s Not Safe To Leave This House has a really wonky chord progression. That’s not to say it’s a bad progression. This is a wonderfully warm track; I actually chose to listen to it a few times before making my judgment on it because I was really enjoying the vibes it was sending me. The one’s about McEwan sitting in his room every day without a job, feeling so useless he didn’t even want to leave the house. I love how relatable these lyrics are, especially with unemployment rates really being a problem in Perth at the moment. I really love the synthesizer outro on this track, as well.
As for the tracks final number, November, I’m instantly getting Jimi Hendrix vibes from the guitar. It sounds just like Hey Joe, but totally different at the same time. It’s just short of 7 minutes and is an excellent bow out for a superb album. It’s possibly the best track. Sometimes I forget how lucky we are here in Perth to be surrounded by so many great local bands. To sum up, it is a rip-roaring album that sends you to other galaxies and beyond, offers food for thought, makes you question things, maybe even relate to McEwan, all the while accompanied by some truly brilliant, intricate guitar riffs, great percussion and mesmerising vocals. It’s without doubt their best work yet, and it’s exciting to think of where the group could go next.
