Metho - Metholated Spirit album review and interview-this raucous beast of a record is deranged and glorious!. By Mark Jenkins.
Metho - Metholated Spirit
as reviewed by Mark Jenkins.
The Fumes Are Real
While AI apps promise to turn any dickhead into a musician overnight, Tom Lyngcoln(The Nation Blue) is sitting in a room with a pen and blank paper, grinding out lyrics line by line after listening to tracks "dozens and sometimes hundreds of times." This is the gulf between authentic underground creation and digital convenience, and Metho's Metholated Spirit plants its flag firmly in the blood-and-sweat camp.
(PIC BY SHONA RUANE)
Born from the wreckage of a 2015 recording session where Jay Allen (Mid Youth Crisis, Fuck I'm Dead) "ripped for half an hour" before Thai food, this album crawled from fake-band status to something genuinely feral. What started as Lyngcoln's solo Raging Head project has mutated into a four-headed beast that wants to see "fumes coming off everything we do."
The title track Metholated Spirit opens like a public execution—Lyngcoln's technique of hitting dissonant chords and letting them decay rather than riff creates this hanging menace where "ghosts everywhere" make locking back into the rhythm more powerful. It's economy through necessity, each element stripped to bone while Jay Allen's relentless drumming provides the nuclear foundation everyone else navigates around.
Sunk Cost and I Can See the Bone showcase the band's bipolar nature—Jackson's anxious vocals weaving between modes where he's either behind a guitar or leaning weaponless into the crowd. These aren't your typical verse-chorus constructions; they're "wild divergences off the primary concept," as Lyngcoln puts it, built for bodies pushed to failure without voiding their other end.
But it's Pressure Cooker where Metho's mission statement crystallises. This isn't just another climate anxiety anthem—it's the sound of someone who's moved from environmental obsession to "old-fashioned greed and corruption" while everything around him commodifies itself into irrelevance. The production keeps every mistake, every human imperfection that separates this from the "production preset in Pro Tools" plaguing underground punk.
The six-second blast of Strangely Athletic (with vocals by Pip) exemplifies their ADHD approach—twenty songs in a half-hour set, blast beats shoved into rock songs, screaming to the point of physical drain. If you don't like the rockers, there's a ten-second destroyer coming up. It's punk's attention economy turned inside-out, hyperactive and deliberate.
Lonely Time and Short Supply offer glimpses of "traditional verse chorus action" that prove they can play nice when needed, but even these moments feel pixelated, blown apart—the visual approximation of methylated spirits themselves. CJ's bass work glides over everything "like a 12 bar blues at an open mic," unflustered while Lyngcoln gets the claw trying to land these tempo-bullied compositions.
What separates this from Melbourne's increasingly self-conscious scene is the Hobart directness bleeding through—no staging for Instagram, no movements designed for photography. Just four bodies performing the task, sometimes ugly, sometimes ferocious, always economical. There's barely any fat because there can't be; this is seasoned, brillantly reheated punk/noise rock that knows the tourists got culled by the pandemic.
Can't Get Clean, Desperation, and Condensed Milk complete a trilogy of dysfunction that reads like a medical chart from hell, but Lyngcoln's twenty-album-deep lyricism finds dark humour in the apocalypse. These aren't confessional diary entries—they're exorcisms, physically draining vocal performances that treat singing like necessary violence.
The production mirrors their live approach: 8-track recordings at rehearsal, overdubs kept minimal, energy prioritised over polish. You can hear the 35-degree summer shows where Lyngcoln finally broke his thirty-year rule about playing in shorts, the black mould wetsuit peeling off after every performance(SEE THE INTERVIEW BELOW FOR THE FULL SCOOP). This is music that translates to sweat, to bodies in small rooms, to the community that's "all we have now."
Metholated Spirit isn't just another debut—it's a manifesto against the digitisation of underground culture. While paid partnerships become points of pride and everything commodifies, Metho creates music that can only exist through human friction, through the chemistry of four heads who refuse to photocopy something that already exists. It's personality as the only remaining x-factor, cracked worldviews channeled into songs that matter precisely because they're difficult, uncompromising, and alive.
In an era where the cost of one international band t-shirt gets you a month of local music, Metho reminds us why that choice matters. This isn't just punk—it's survival.
OUT NOW:
GET SOME VIDEO ACTION:
GET PERSONAL:
(BLACK AND WHITE PICS BY MATTHEW ELLERY IN REVIEW AND INTERVIEW)
(JAY PIC FROM FLIPPIN THE BIRD FROM BAND'S IG PAGE, SAME AS THE OTHER PICS I STOLE)AND HERE'S A CRACKING INTERVIEW I DID WITH TOM.
METHO INTERVIEW
Metholated Spirit - Album Release Interview By Mark Jenkins.
OPENING SALVO
"Metholated Spirit" hits like a brick through a squat window – raw, uncompromising, and unapologetically Melbourne. Before we dive into the sonic chaos, give us the genesis story. How did Metho crawl out of the underground and what drove you to make this particular statement?TOM-
Thanks, Mark. Yes, the genesis is old and weird. In 2015, I was about to have a kid and was cramming as much music in before that inevitably slowed me down. I booked a rehearsal room for Jay Allen, whom I’ve known since moving to Melbourne from Hobart. Jay played in Mid Youth Crisis and Fuck I’m Dead and The Kill..more to the point he’s one of the best drummers ever. I wanted to record him playing drums so I could write some stuff over the top. We set up and he ripped for half an hour and then we went and ate Thai food for two hours. From that half an hour, I got the 11 songs on Raging Head that I released as a solo album back in 2020. CJ from Metho then played bass on those recordings. So it was basically pieced together. A fake band. A boy band. But Mikey Young during mastering thought it was a real band, so we did a good job.
With the pandemic we never played a show for that album but decided to try and turn it into a real live thing. So in 2021 we started trying to rehearse, but between Corona and flu's we were cancelling more jams than we were playing. We all have kids and those little petrie dishes made progress glacial. But the jams were killer when we got to do them, so we ground it out. I knew there was something good about it. It’s pretty easy when you’ve got great musicians. The three-piece was fine but I wanted more so we added Jackson on vocals and some guitar and it’s been more feral ever since. I’ve always loved brutal punk music and wanted to try it without the rigidity of the form. Just take the tasty bits and get weird.
SOUND & FURY
The album walks a tightrope between garage punk's angular tension and post-hardcore's crushing weight. Was this sonic schizophrenia intentional, or did it just evolve naturally in the rehearsal room?TOM-
The tightrope is between my limitations as a guitarist and the endless skills of the others. I can only do what I do. No matter how hard I try to curate a sound it alway ends up sounding like something I’d do. The choices are always the same regardless of the genre.
Metho though has a couple of modes. It’s either a full band with two guitars and me singing or one where Jackson is singing without guitar and just leaning into the crowd a little more. I don’t like the pigeon- holing of hardcore and the restrictions on what bands should be in punk. It’s too predictable. I like noise and freedom. The songs are fucking short so if you don’t like the rockers there’s a ten second blast song coming up. We play 20 songs in a half hour set.
What bands or moments shaped this approach?
TOM-
For Metho, it’s just the chemistry of the four heads. I can’t stand when people put bands together and have a sound they are trying to recreate. That’s no different to a casino cover band. I’ve never heard a band with a mission statement like that make it to a second record that’s any good. Music for me is about the personality of the musicians bleeding through, not a photocopy of something that already exists. At this stage of modernity that’s the only thing we have. Hendrix is the best guitarist to have done it and achieved that in the first 20 years of amplified guitar. Feedback solos, astral travelling and gear destruction. He did all of this. So it’s all already been done. The facsimile is so faded at this point that personality is the only x-factor. Nina Simone, Wesley Willis, Daniel Johnston, ODB, Patti Smith, Beefheart, Charles Mingus, Arthur Russell, Abner Jay, Diamanda Galas are all so important because they can’t do anything else but channel their world into song. Cracked world views.
Your production choices feel deliberately abrasive – there's grit where others might polish. Talk us through the recording process and why you chose rawness over refinement.
TOM-
That’s limitations too. I record everything and we write fast. Keep the takes low and record at rehearsal so there’s no polish on it. There’s mistakes throughout Metholated Spirit. Despite having the technology to edit we keep it human. That’s important moving forward. A computer can make this record now without human input. The mistakes have always been the sugar high for me in everything.
In terms of the practical process. We’d write a song and record it fast. I’d set up an 8 track and we’d get my guitar and Jay’s drums and then just overdub from there. Getting the energy is the critical factor, not allowing too many reps where the peaks and troughs get flattened out and become stable. Sonically it’s kinda mid-fi. It’s not a buzzsaw saw guitar with a cardboard box flapping around in the background for drums. There’s a whole genre of underground punk that is almost a production preset in Pro-tools. Sometimes I think that bands lean on that and a black and white Winston Smith (Dead Kennedys) or Gee Vaucher (Crass) or Martin H (Discharge) cover to tell you what it is instead of good songs. I like being thrown off guard by contrarianists and people who take the framework and pixelate it to an unrecognisable form.
THE MELBOURNE FACTOR
Melbourne's underground scene is notorious for eating its young. How has the city's brutal honesty shaped Metho's sound, and where do you see yourselves as seasoned veterans fitting into the current landscape?TOM-
We are too seasoned and reheated to be tasty. I like community but abhor scenes. I don’t like expectation and conformity. I have friends in all corners and try to be good to everyone but don’t want to be restricted by the code. That’s important. And we are aware of the history and the importance of certain Melbourne things but given how long we have been playing music for, some of us have been involved in parts of those movements and moments, so the landscape doesn’t worry us. We’re interested in the build.
The level of honesty in Melbourne also kinda pales compared to what Hobart was like. Sarcasm and brutal criticism were everyday down there. It was harsh at times. Melbourne is a lot more self-conscious. Even the way people move on stage is increasingly designed for optics and photography and content. When we perform we are just trying to get our bodies to perform the task and sometimes that’s ugly or hideous. Sometimes it’s ferocious. But it’s all just one end of us pushed to the point of failure without voiding the other end of us. Hobart still informs everything I do, so when I make a decision it’s concise. The Metho sound is about as economical as it gets. There’s barely any fat.
Which local venues, bands, or festivals have been crucial to your development? Any particular Melbourne moments that defined the band's trajectory?
TOM-
Rowdy’s Records in Northcote let us play instore for the first time late last year. Then The Pinnacle in Fitzroy gave us our first show and Flipping The Bird Festival in Frankston booked us sight unseen. That’s a lot of trust. People kinda knew what they were getting but it still takes guts to book a band that headlines its first ever show. Another big one was we played with Eddy Current Suppression Ring at the legendary skate shop The Snakepit. Local legends Brick and Mortar took over the Snakepit name and ran a couple of shows inshore, and Breno from the shop asked me to book something. I told Mikey about it and he asked if ECSR could play. It was wild even as a secret show. We learned that day to not play after Eddy Current. It’s still early days for Metho.
Rowdy’s Records in Northcote let us play instore for the first time late last year. Then The Pinnacle in Fitzroy gave us our first show and Flipping The Bird Festival in Frankston booked us sight unseen. That’s a lot of trust. People kinda knew what they were getting but it still takes guts to book a band that headlines its first ever show. Another big one was we played with Eddy Current Suppression Ring at the legendary skate shop The Snakepit. Local legends Brick and Mortar took over the Snakepit name and ran a couple of shows inshore, and Breno from the shop asked me to book something. I told Mikey about it and he asked if ECSR could play. It was wild even as a secret show. We learned that day to not play after Eddy Current. It’s still early days for Metho.
LYRICAL WARFARE
The album title "Metholated Spirit" suggests something caustic, medicinal, potentially destructive. Then we have titles that cover every aspect of life or dysfunction; Sunk Cost, I Can See the Bone, Strangely Athletic, Pressure Cooker, Can’t Get Clean, Desperation and Condensed Milk. What themes are you wrestling with lyrically, and how do they reflect the current state of things?Are you trying to heal something or burn it down? Maybe both?
TOM-
I’m twenty albums deep at this point. I can’t stop writing music but fucking lyrics are a grind. I’ve been bending words to suit my needs for three decades and taking it seriously for two decades. Metholated Spirit for me is the visual approximation of the sound. Pixelated and blown apart. A bit rotten. The songs themselves are just wild divergences off the primary concept. Tales of woe and preoccupation. For years I was obsessed with environment and degradation. Now it’s just old fashioned greed and corruption. Everyone has a price these days. I’ve been pretty on edge since I was a kid and didn’t know what it was and what to do about it. From an early age singing and writing helped me process it. It’s a vent so I guess in a way it is healing for me. To sing like this is also an exorcism, it’s physically draining. I like that aspect too. I don’t like easy things, it feels cheap. So even when I write I don’t use tricks or apps or generation..I sit there with a pen and a blank piece of paper and build it line by line straight from the dome by listening to the tracks dozens and sometimes hundreds of times.
I love these ads on social media talking about how AI is helping people with no ability write music easily. How’s that good? I spent every night as a child working on this. It is a hobby, but I’m serious about it. It’s not for everyone. The AI app should just be a tinder thing that pairs you with three other punks and you have to work the rest out or an economist somewhere explodes. Either or.
I’m twenty albums deep at this point. I can’t stop writing music but fucking lyrics are a grind. I’ve been bending words to suit my needs for three decades and taking it seriously for two decades. Metholated Spirit for me is the visual approximation of the sound. Pixelated and blown apart. A bit rotten. The songs themselves are just wild divergences off the primary concept. Tales of woe and preoccupation. For years I was obsessed with environment and degradation. Now it’s just old fashioned greed and corruption. Everyone has a price these days. I’ve been pretty on edge since I was a kid and didn’t know what it was and what to do about it. From an early age singing and writing helped me process it. It’s a vent so I guess in a way it is healing for me. To sing like this is also an exorcism, it’s physically draining. I like that aspect too. I don’t like easy things, it feels cheap. So even when I write I don’t use tricks or apps or generation..I sit there with a pen and a blank piece of paper and build it line by line straight from the dome by listening to the tracks dozens and sometimes hundreds of times.
I love these ads on social media talking about how AI is helping people with no ability write music easily. How’s that good? I spent every night as a child working on this. It is a hobby, but I’m serious about it. It’s not for everyone. The AI app should just be a tinder thing that pairs you with three other punks and you have to work the rest out or an economist somewhere explodes. Either or.
PRICKLY PROCESSES
Let's talk technique and approach. What's your METHOd when it comes to achieving that particular brand of sonic violence?TOM-
Haha. Metho is the mission statement. I want to see fumes coming off everything we do. That means sticking blast beats in rock n roll songs and screaming to the point of shitting. Just trying to keep things ramped up and unconventional.
Are there unconventional techniques or happy accidents that have become signature elements of your sound?
There’s a few ingredients that I keep coming back to. I can’t riff. I can’t lock in like that, so for me the sound gets interesting when it rings out in decay. Instead of riffing I like to hit a chord with a bit of dissonance and let that hang like a public execution. By the time it hits the end of the bar there’s ghosts everywhere and it makes locking in on the one again more powerful. But it’s more a function of necessity. CJ and Jay are both endlessly hectic. Runs and Rolls. I coast like beached sunfish and then Jackson is all anxiety. He prefers not to practice and rocks up loose. Sometimes it’s chemical edge and sometimes he drifts off wherever he wants. It’s a heady mix.
Jay bares the brunt. His ability to roll and shred the kit so relentlessly is the foundation on which everything subsists. Everyone knows. It’s like bringing a nuke to body sparring. Even on Raging Head I knew what the brief would be…”Just Keep Rolling”.
TOM-
Yeah Mark, I grew up in Tassie and started playing music in the early 1990’s where recording your songs and selling a tape was considered selling out. It was regressive, but in the past 12 months I’m coming back to the core concept a little. This notion carries no weight anymore and fuck, I think it should again. Being called a Sell Out used to sting. Now paid partnerships are a point of pride and everything is commodified. The Nation Blue got some free clothes early on with a bunch of other Melbourne bands and were called sell outs online and I’m still mad about it. I think that’s a good thing.
I’ve run my own label Solar/Sonar for 20 years and do everything. I’ve been lucky to be on some great labels too like Trial and Error, Fear Of Children, Poison City, Remote Control, Casa Del Disco and Nice Music but for the most part I’ve done everything myself from the writing to the recording to the release and what’s left of publicity. Publicity in Hobart in 1995 would have got me stoned to death in the bus mall.
What pisses you off most about the current state of heavy music? And more so what are the positives (given the amount of brilliant bands we keep producing) in your mind?
TOM-
I reckon heavy music is better than ever. The pandemic really culled the tourists. Hardcore seems to be raging again and punk is interesting. Bands like Serpette, Primitive Blast, Kissland, Robber, Extortion, Sin Tax, The Chain, Forewarned, Internal Rot, Nerve Damage, Goaled, Empty Threats, Tongue Dissolver, Rat Bait, Fuxache, Mortal Ambition are all some of the most vital and hectic bands in the country
While the classics seems to be somehow on an upward trajectory too: Mindsnare, StraightJacket Nation, Radio Birdman, Eddy Current. Beanflipper are back. Blood Duster just played. MYC are about to do the same. Dick Diver. It’s unreal. It’s the perfect confluence of the energy of the new bands and the intensity of the old. And without the fuckheads who saw The Vines and joined a band on their way to a job in middle management so they could stalk women and be cunts to people. To be fair, some of those bands have come back to cash in one more time, but that’s mostly just triple J trash that sits outside my orbit.
I think things are mostly good. The edge lords of the early 2000s are gone with the decline of Vice. There’s more women on stage. Heavy crowds are good too. They always have been. Ask any bar manager who the best crowds are, and it’s always metal.
The only bad thing I see in heavy music is the same shit I saw in the 1990s with National Socialists thinking they can walk around unchecked and put on shows, but I get the feeling that won’t continue the way it is currently. But it is shocking to see venues here in Melbourne support these dummies by hosting their racist dry circle jerks.
Haha. Metho is the mission statement. I want to see fumes coming off everything we do. That means sticking blast beats in rock n roll songs and screaming to the point of shitting. Just trying to keep things ramped up and unconventional.
Are there unconventional techniques or happy accidents that have become signature elements of your sound?
There’s a few ingredients that I keep coming back to. I can’t riff. I can’t lock in like that, so for me the sound gets interesting when it rings out in decay. Instead of riffing I like to hit a chord with a bit of dissonance and let that hang like a public execution. By the time it hits the end of the bar there’s ghosts everywhere and it makes locking in on the one again more powerful. But it’s more a function of necessity. CJ and Jay are both endlessly hectic. Runs and Rolls. I coast like beached sunfish and then Jackson is all anxiety. He prefers not to practice and rocks up loose. Sometimes it’s chemical edge and sometimes he drifts off wherever he wants. It’s a heady mix.
Jay bares the brunt. His ability to roll and shred the kit so relentlessly is the foundation on which everything subsists. Everyone knows. It’s like bringing a nuke to body sparring. Even on Raging Head I knew what the brief would be…”Just Keep Rolling”.
SCENE POLITICS
Underground music often comes with strong opinions about authenticity, commercialisation, and "selling out." Where does Metho stand on these age-old debates? You seem to just do your thing passionately, rather than have any interest in schoolyard nonsenseTOM-
Yeah Mark, I grew up in Tassie and started playing music in the early 1990’s where recording your songs and selling a tape was considered selling out. It was regressive, but in the past 12 months I’m coming back to the core concept a little. This notion carries no weight anymore and fuck, I think it should again. Being called a Sell Out used to sting. Now paid partnerships are a point of pride and everything is commodified. The Nation Blue got some free clothes early on with a bunch of other Melbourne bands and were called sell outs online and I’m still mad about it. I think that’s a good thing.
I’ve run my own label Solar/Sonar for 20 years and do everything. I’ve been lucky to be on some great labels too like Trial and Error, Fear Of Children, Poison City, Remote Control, Casa Del Disco and Nice Music but for the most part I’ve done everything myself from the writing to the recording to the release and what’s left of publicity. Publicity in Hobart in 1995 would have got me stoned to death in the bus mall.
What pisses you off most about the current state of heavy music? And more so what are the positives (given the amount of brilliant bands we keep producing) in your mind?
TOM-
I reckon heavy music is better than ever. The pandemic really culled the tourists. Hardcore seems to be raging again and punk is interesting. Bands like Serpette, Primitive Blast, Kissland, Robber, Extortion, Sin Tax, The Chain, Forewarned, Internal Rot, Nerve Damage, Goaled, Empty Threats, Tongue Dissolver, Rat Bait, Fuxache, Mortal Ambition are all some of the most vital and hectic bands in the country
While the classics seems to be somehow on an upward trajectory too: Mindsnare, StraightJacket Nation, Radio Birdman, Eddy Current. Beanflipper are back. Blood Duster just played. MYC are about to do the same. Dick Diver. It’s unreal. It’s the perfect confluence of the energy of the new bands and the intensity of the old. And without the fuckheads who saw The Vines and joined a band on their way to a job in middle management so they could stalk women and be cunts to people. To be fair, some of those bands have come back to cash in one more time, but that’s mostly just triple J trash that sits outside my orbit.
I think things are mostly good. The edge lords of the early 2000s are gone with the decline of Vice. There’s more women on stage. Heavy crowds are good too. They always have been. Ask any bar manager who the best crowds are, and it’s always metal.
The only bad thing I see in heavy music is the same shit I saw in the 1990s with National Socialists thinking they can walk around unchecked and put on shows, but I get the feeling that won’t continue the way it is currently. But it is shocking to see venues here in Melbourne support these dummies by hosting their racist dry circle jerks.
LIVE WARFARE
How does the album translate to live performance? Are you aiming to recreate the record or completely demolish it on stage?
TOM-
We just play them as written. Sometimes they are faster. Actually, most of the time they are faster. Jay is a tempo bully. I get the claw a lot, trying to land these songs. CJ glides over this set like it’s a 12-bar blues at an open mic on a Tuesday. Unflustered. First time I saw him, he was sound checking with his old band The Stevens and playing along with Stoner Witch by the Melvins…note perfect, like he wrote it.
Jackson, too…most folks know him with the Heaters and singing up front for Split System, but he is an overt shredder and super instinctive devotee of the outer reaches. He fucks around and never finds out. So live is kinda easy for everyone but me. I push as hard as I can, though.
What's the most intense live experience you've had as a band, either giving or receiving?
TOM-
We’ve only played a half dozen times, but they were all last summer. Every fucking show was 35 degrees plus. I’ve always shit on people for playing in shorts. I’ve never done it in 30 years of playing live. You’ve gotta have standards. But my god, I payed in full this past summer. It was like peeling off a wetsuit made from black mould after every show. Beyond the insane heat, we have been touched up a couple of times already. Eddy Current is pretty good and we shouldn’t have headlined…Serpette are relentless. Mortal Ambition also. It’s been a fun start to Metho,though.
"Metholated Spirit" drops today. What's the master plan for world domination, or at least Melbourne venue obliteration?
TOM-
We just play them as written. Sometimes they are faster. Actually, most of the time they are faster. Jay is a tempo bully. I get the claw a lot, trying to land these songs. CJ glides over this set like it’s a 12-bar blues at an open mic on a Tuesday. Unflustered. First time I saw him, he was sound checking with his old band The Stevens and playing along with Stoner Witch by the Melvins…note perfect, like he wrote it.
Jackson, too…most folks know him with the Heaters and singing up front for Split System, but he is an overt shredder and super instinctive devotee of the outer reaches. He fucks around and never finds out. So live is kinda easy for everyone but me. I push as hard as I can, though.
What's the most intense live experience you've had as a band, either giving or receiving?
TOM-
We’ve only played a half dozen times, but they were all last summer. Every fucking show was 35 degrees plus. I’ve always shit on people for playing in shorts. I’ve never done it in 30 years of playing live. You’ve gotta have standards. But my god, I payed in full this past summer. It was like peeling off a wetsuit made from black mould after every show. Beyond the insane heat, we have been touched up a couple of times already. Eddy Current is pretty good and we shouldn’t have headlined…Serpette are relentless. Mortal Ambition also. It’s been a fun start to Metho,though.
FUTURE DESTRUCTION
"Metholated Spirit" drops today. What's the master plan for world domination, or at least Melbourne venue obliteration?
TOM-
We are getting close. I’m about to get really friendly with a tape gun and the local post office. The album is out July 28th and then we head up to Brisbane to play the first shows for the album at The Sound Over The Fence Fest and sideshows at Season Three and Via Studios. Then it’s the Melbourne launch at The Grace Darling on the 13th September with Arse from Sydney, Speeding Vehicle from Brisbane and Serpette. We are working on Sydney for October around the Jesus Lizard shows I’m playing with The Nation Blue. We’ve just put out a second single for Lonely Time directed by Spod and there’s also a clip for the 6-second song Strangely Athletic by Stokesy from Harrowing Films, sung by Pip. Both of those I love and are worth the 2 minutes and 6 seconds of your day. And from there we’ll just keep rolling really.
Any dream shows, tours, or collaborations you're plotting?
TOM-
We played with Mindsnare at Flipping The Bird, but would love to play a pub show with them. Some of the best people. Nigel supported The Nation Blue when we first moved over from Tassie, and Beltsy has let me win three games of pong in 15 years. They are the undisputed kings. Still reigning. Good mates, and I’d love to feel the direct burn of being eviscerated by them again one day. It’s unique. Extortion, StraightJacket, Internal Rot are all targets too. A split with Don Walker would rule.
We are getting close. I’m about to get really friendly with a tape gun and the local post office. The album is out July 28th and then we head up to Brisbane to play the first shows for the album at The Sound Over The Fence Fest and sideshows at Season Three and Via Studios. Then it’s the Melbourne launch at The Grace Darling on the 13th September with Arse from Sydney, Speeding Vehicle from Brisbane and Serpette. We are working on Sydney for October around the Jesus Lizard shows I’m playing with The Nation Blue. We’ve just put out a second single for Lonely Time directed by Spod and there’s also a clip for the 6-second song Strangely Athletic by Stokesy from Harrowing Films, sung by Pip. Both of those I love and are worth the 2 minutes and 6 seconds of your day. And from there we’ll just keep rolling really.
Any dream shows, tours, or collaborations you're plotting?
TOM-
We played with Mindsnare at Flipping The Bird, but would love to play a pub show with them. Some of the best people. Nigel supported The Nation Blue when we first moved over from Tassie, and Beltsy has let me win three games of pong in 15 years. They are the undisputed kings. Still reigning. Good mates, and I’d love to feel the direct burn of being eviscerated by them again one day. It’s unique. Extortion, StraightJacket, Internal Rot are all targets too. A split with Don Walker would rule.
FINAL BLOW
If someone's never heard Metho before, what track from "Metholated Spirit" do you throw at them first, and why?TOM-
Hmmm, maybe we could hit them with five without them knowing..The album is peppered with ADHD grinders and then blast Short Supply or Lonely Time for a bit of traditional verse-chorus action to show we can play nice.
Last words for anyone still sitting on the fence about whether underground music matters?
Last words for anyone still sitting on the fence about whether underground music matters?
TOM-
Oh fuck you. Those are the words. Now more than ever. Get involved. Find something local you like made by people. That option is only going to get harder, and people who are apathetic at this stage are going to be inundated with digital shit. If you’re not across what’s going down in your town, then your options are about to be more boring by the minute. Go to local shows. Fuck internationals. They charge too much and use backing tracks, and you have to watch them on TVs from 400m away. The cost of one t-shirt from an international merch stand will get you into a month of local music. You’ll meet people, dance, support a small venue and maybe even start something yourself. Community is all we have now. Embrace it.
Oh fuck you. Those are the words. Now more than ever. Get involved. Find something local you like made by people. That option is only going to get harder, and people who are apathetic at this stage are going to be inundated with digital shit. If you’re not across what’s going down in your town, then your options are about to be more boring by the minute. Go to local shows. Fuck internationals. They charge too much and use backing tracks, and you have to watch them on TVs from 400m away. The cost of one t-shirt from an international merch stand will get you into a month of local music. You’ll meet people, dance, support a small venue and maybe even start something yourself. Community is all we have now. Embrace it.
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BUY THE ALBUM AND GO SEE THESE LEGENDS!!!!
– Reviewed/Interviewed by Mark Jenkins for Devil's Horns Zine- "Bringing you the music your parents warned you about since 2018 "
LAST BUT NOT LEAST, SUPPORT THE ARTISTS (AND US) BY SPREADING THE WORD, FOLLOWING US ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND REPOSTING OUR WORKS...SUPPORT THE UNDERGROUND AND OUR COMMUNITY. THERE ARE NO COMMERCIAL GAINS.
And:
Music is not a commodity, it's a community. Your art should reflect your truth, not what others want to hear. Ian MacKaye.
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Feel free to comment, but anything racist or sexist goes in the bin, as you should also.