Low Life

Low Life

From Squats To Lots: The Agony & Xtc Of Low Life

Goner

Some records hit one with an instant impression of timeless brilliance, and Low Life’s Dogging is one of those records, what the wise call “an instant classic”. From Squats To Lots: The Agony And The XTC Of Low Life is more like their second album Downer Edn (read Edition), a little more withdrawn, a little more textured. Complex. Rich. Which is to say: one’s going to need some time with it. Iggy Pop’s Bowie-produced studio rock masterpieces The Idiot and Lust For Life are important reference points to this third album. Here comes success! Bowie later referred to this period of his life as profoundly nihilistic. But Iggy looked at it as the period of his life that saved him from an early grave. This confrontation is Low life lore. Sip it, and sense the recurring brilliance of Mitch Tolman’s lyrics, exploring the usual territory of gutter life, lad life, punk life, low life. The dirge. Disgust and shame in white Australia. Council housing, bills piled to the neck, substance abuse and rehabilitation, the fallen lads and lasses who stood too close to the flame, loss and loneliness, from squats to lots. Un-Australian gutter symphony. Think, like, if Poison Idea were given the kind of studio time and budget as Happy Mondays. One wouldn’t play this to a teenager. It’s not for children. This is a mature flavor, one for the adults who have had to contend with failure and hardship, medical bills and disappointed family members, betrayed lovers and...

Low Life

Downer Edn

Goner

***CHECK STOCK!!!  Received a 7.3 rating from Pitchfork.  The whole “five band years = a lifetime” biz trope is justified, if not negated, by the second album from Sydney’s Low Life. Arriving with an aura of anticipation, Downer Edn (read: Edition) feels like a collective document of the band’s timeline since their unforgettable debut Dogging—an album which made enough of a mark on the punk landscape in 2014 to justify a reissue on London’s Alter in 2017.   Recorded over two years and mixed in 2018 by Mikey Young (Total Control / Eddy Current Suppression Ring), Downer Edn sees the core trio of Mitch Tolman, Cristian O’Sullivan and Greg Alfaro expand their ranks to a five piece. Dizzy Daldal of Oily Boys & Orion was brought in to reinforce the thick wall of guitars, whilst fifth member Yuta Matsumura, also of Oily Boys & Orion, re-joined the group later to free Tolman up as a dedicated front man for live duties. The hours of studio work have resulted in making the band sound more confident and fully realised, reaching for and finding a sound that was perhaps unattainable five years prior. However, lurking behind the bigger vision and polished production is a complex proposition and a dark blast of an album.   As far as Australian punk is concerned, this album not only shatters the boundaries, it does so with the lushest attack conceivable. Like their (admitted) influence, the enigmatic Ohio legends of obscurity, V3, seldom has...