Review: Eddy Current Suppression Ring at The Rechabite
Eddy Current Suppression Ring at The Rechabite
w/ Sooks, Lyndon Blue Band
Friday, October 2, 2026
It’s been a long wait between drinks for Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s return, but evidently the thirst for the Melbourne garage-rock quartet hasn’t diminished. Their sold-out Rechabite show prompted a second at Fremantle Buffalo Club the following night, courtesy of Permanent Residence. The crowd was largely of a vintage befitting the band’s own, with plenty still keen to get amongst it.
Born from a Christmas party jam at a Melbourne vinyl pressing plant, Eddy Current have never seemed particularly interested in making a fuss. There was no grand spectacle here: just four musicians, deceptively simple riffs and a frontman whose peculiar physical vocabulary made familiar material wonderfully off-kilter.
Kicking off the night, local outfit Sooks had already established themselves as the bill’s most ferocious proposition, their abrasive punk providing a considerable contrast with the more melodic and exploratory territory that followed. While their particular brand of intensity sits at the heavier end of this local continuum; here, it also underscored just how elastic the evening’s relationship with punk could be.
Lyndon Blue Band‘s six-piece arrangements made room for keys, saxophone and clarinet alongside brisk, twanging guitars. Lyndon Blue’s unaffected Australian twang found an almost conversational partner in the saxophone before their opener came to an abrupt halt. The clarinet added a pleasing discordance elsewhere.
Room for Jack revisited Titanic‘s enduring door debate, its syllables jostling for space in the rhythm as if Jack himself were trying to squeeze aboard. A slower, funk-laden number let Blue’s voice intertwine with Annika Moses’, while brighter passages carried a Go-Betweens-like bounce. It was art-punk with room for melody rather than speed alone, though chatter from the hall competed with its subtler moments.
By the time Eddy Current Suppression Ring emerged, anticipation had thickened considerably. Brendan Huntley, better known as Brendan Suppression, paced the stage while pulling on his trademark black gloves, a strange ceremonial entrance for such an unshowy band. Cool Ice Cream opened with shouted flavours and Huntley wringing his white plaid shirt at the stage’s edge. Beside him, bassist Brad Barry was already kicking, swinging and folding himself around his instrument.
Memory Lane drew an enormous swell of recognition early on. Guitarist Mikey Young and drummer Danny Young played with near-mechanical precision, while Barry’s elastic basslines pushed against their framework. The music was tightly disciplined; the bodies delivering it seemed to obey entirely different instructions.
During Wrapped Up, Huntley throttled himself with the microphone cord as the guitar riff wound relentlessly beneath him. Menace and delight occupied the same space. Elsewhere he pressed a black glove over his face or held a note while staring into the depths of the crowd, his movements sometimes slower and stranger than the urgency of his voice.
There’s something marvellously economical about Eddy Current’s writing. ‘It’s all square, even when it’s round’ might look almost too simple on paper, yet becomes oddly profound. Their songs rarely need elaborate metaphors to articulate contradiction, anxiety or the absurdities of everyday life. The repetition does much of the heavy lifting. Guitar, bass and drums each had room to breathe, with sharp stops and melodic turns preventing the arrangements from becoming static.
Gathering the slack of his microphone cord, Huntley scaled the balconies to mingle with the punters above. It could have been a familiar exercise in punk provocation, but minus the confrontational edge. He seemed less interested in commanding the room than inhabiting it from every possible angle.
Swimming Hole and Colour Television brought further waves of recognition, the latter’s immediately familiar riff setting off another round of cheers. Huntley’s delivery remained characteristically understated, even as his body betrayed a restless, almost manic energy. Part Peter Garrett, part socially awkward: an off-kilter physicality that resisted easy interpretation.
By the latter half of the set, the audience was returning as much energy as the band could muster. The night’s first crowd surfer appeared late while the swelling cheers during Which Way to Go threatened to drown out the band. Huntley lingered at the ends of songs, eyes fixed on the audience as though taking in the affection coming back at him. Young, meanwhile, often turned away to concentrate on his playing, one leg twitching insistently in time.
Closing with Rush to Relax, the guitar coaxed out an almost tropical, calypso-like melody over a murmuring bass pulse. Huntley descended into the mosh, seemingly trying to settle its energy rather than whip it up. After so much nervous momentum, the invitation to relax was both literal and faintly absurd.
Perhaps age has mellowed Eddy Current’s disposition, or perhaps this no-nonsense affection was always there. Either way, their wiry, urgent music remains proof that simplicity needn’t be shallow and that a punk frontman can dissolve into the crowd without spectacle.
CAT LANDRO
Photos by Karen Lowe
