Deserted

Paradise
My Disco
Stomp, 2008
4 stars

I was so ready to love this album. All the lead-up talk of "Steve Albini this" and "Chicago that" had my appetite well and truly whet, and this morning when the digipack landed on my desk I probably looked like a 9-year-old girl discovering that High School Musical On Ice is coming to town. I was expecting Cancer: Part 2, but expectations can be a pain, because Paradise is a different beast entirely. The album's gate-fold cover shows Liam, Rohan and Ben standing on top of a pile of rocks in the middle of a sparse central Australian desert - it's the perfect visual partner for the album, because Paradise is a brutal, meditative lesson in patience. The boys are just as precise as ever, the drums and guitars working together so tightly you'd swear they're machine-operated. This time around they have a bit more time up their sleeves though, and they use it well - where Cancer was hurried and claustrophobic, Paradise's de-constructed drumbeats and basslines evoke endless desert landscapes of their own. There's a real sense of dread that comes with being surrounded by so much space, but, given time to get used to your surroundings it can become something really beautiful, and Paradise is a place worth getting used to. Sounding like it was inspired by a car alarm, A Christ Pendent Comfort Her Neck is as good as anything they've released yet, and the foreboding Land is the perfect album closer.

Artwork: A+

Published in mX, Thursday February 28, 2008