Scabz: Pressure | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- Pressure is the debut full-length album from SCABZ, Sydney pub-punk band with a sense of humour, a knack for social commentary, and a DIY punk sensibility.

SCABZ have been releasing music for four years, steadily building a profile at the same time as the social analysis in their songs has evolved. Their first moment of notoriety was a song depicting cricketer Brett Lee being refused entry into a popular Kings Cross nightclub; but in more recent times there have been songs criticizing Sydney’s lockout laws, then parodying climate deniers, then earlier this year attacking Scott Morrison in a song ending with the coda “you don’t speak for me, we see things differently”.

Pressure doesn’t include any of those earlier singles, but it certainly has a political message. The album opens with the lyric “I’m sick of all these men telling me how to use my body/When they can’t use their heads to wield their power well” and ends with Julia Gillard’s famous parliament misogyny speech set to a hard rock freakout - with a few other topics covered in between.

It’s not all politics mind you. The funniest moment on the record is the skit Covid I Reckon, which depicts awkward small talk dominated by the pandemic and its fallout. It and Double Dole place the album firmly in 2020 and our experiences of this year. Just At The Pub (Gossin’ With The Gals) is a song dedicated to what it says in the title, and is also quite a good description of what listening to SCABZ is like. Band members are publicly listed by classic Aussie nicknames Von and Lozzy, songs are simple and catchy, and they talk about the world in an irreverent, personal way.

Guess Who is presumably a response to the ongoing discussion about police violence and its causes – the two minute punk song is brash and obnoxious, but does bring up the way our society’s power structures encourage the wrong personality types to take positions of responsibility. Similarly, the title track describes the mental health struggles common amongst young people and uncovers a material basis to them, that of trying to survive in one of the world’s most expensive cities. The Heart Of Nothing is similar, except it highlights the way our lives spent constantly keeping up appearances on social media leaves us with no real relationships or strong sense of self.

This is what political types call “consciousness raising” – looking at our day to day experiences through a broader framework that helps us understand them as social and not just personal issues. “Consciousness raising” may seem like a fancy term to apply to SCABZ’s simple and snotty pub rock, not to mention the fact their self-deprecating band name is the traditional leftist’s worst insult. But when we ask the question of what role art and music can play in making a better world, this has to be one of the things that art can actually do. Heading to the pub with SCABZ, or indeed getting high and eating ice cream with them as they depict in another song, we are likely to end up with more than just idle gossip.

- Andy Paine.
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