These New South Whales: I Just Do What God Tells Me To Do

- Eight years into the game, These New South Whales haven’t abandoned their brash punk ethos, but they’re certainly maturing in some ways. When I caught them at BIGSOUND this year, their trademark nipple tape was nowhere to be seen, and the contact details of their management, publicist and booking agent were projected in huge letters behind their set (you never know who could be watching, right?). At the same time, you couldn’t fault lead vocalist Jamie Timony’s commitment to performing a set with all cylinders blazing. He paced around the stage shirtless, with a fanny pack full of marshmallows he fed to punters in the front row, and had a fair number of the beard-stroking industry types buying into the revelry.

Similarly, the Sydney outfit’s second album, I Just Do What God Tells Me To Do, is evidence of a moving forward from their politically preoccupied, sometimes frantic 2017 debut LP, You Work For Us. The latter made a huge splash in the Aussie punk scene, undoubtedly supported by the success of the band’s Comedy Central mockumentary series. This new collection of songs certainly has frenzied, high-energy tracks to please fans of Cholesterol Heart (God Bless Ya) and Are You Au Fait? Lead single Nerve 2 Reverse, is a dense, distorted, punchy cry to “restore yourself to factory settings”, according to Jamie. Then there’s Do U Connect?, which puts up arms to a prevalent culture of distance and drifting over propulsive drumming.

It’s encouraging to see TSNW working to push at the edges of their sound on songs that take a turn for the sunnier, drawing on elements from The Strokes, or The Cure. The lyrics stay pretty bleak: on In the Light of Day, Jamie warbles that he can “See through your deception”, but it’s over a melodic guitar line, and there’s a sense of fist-shaking, joyful righteousness in his delivery, joined by vocals from the rest of the band. There’s the same rousing quality on Reservation, a track frustrated with the increasing difficulty of “keeping your head out above the water” as the deadweight of age hangs out on your shoulders. The dive into the personal strikes an honest, refreshing connection with the listener.

The guys are still game to muck around, of course. The titular I Just Do What God Tells Me To Do is one of two spoken interludes, along with The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease, which features possibly the longest solo a loose wheely-chair wheel has had recorded on an LP. And, with no track of the eleven clocking in at more than three minutes, TNSW prove they’ve got what it takes to produce a tightly concentrated body of work with a big payoff.

- Aleisha McLaren.
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