- Maybe the cutest of all marsupials, land clearing has not been kind to the Quokka. These days its habitat is confined almost entirely to Rottnest Island off the coast of Perth, though in recent years the apparently smiling demeanour of the quokka has made it a bit of an internet meme. Thriving in the realm of cyberspace while the conditions required for life are rapidly being destroyed, there is something symbolic about the fate of the Quokka.
Thankfully Last Quokka is just the name of a Perth punk band and not yet an ecological reality. Unconscious Drivers is their fourth album, a typical slice of garage punk riffing and gobby political screeds.
Musically, Last Quokka are reminiscent of the Aussie garage punk of Eddy Current Suppression Ring or UV Race. Philosophically though, they fit with bands like Melbourne's When Our Turn Comes or Sydney's Scabz - simple guitar rock with a humourous and somewhat obnoxious political lyrical bent.
On Unconscious Drivers this becomes immediately apparent on album opener Privilege - a satirical attack on the mansplaining social media troll. Saints and Colony are assaults on the social institutions of religion and nation. Suffocation and Pictures Of The End reflect a bleaker view of our circumstances, but Wake Up Geoff is a sincere tribute to the former Western Australian premier Geoff Gallop. Given the band's anarchist tendencies this is a little surprising, but it may be another effect of our uninspiring political times - it's not the current Labor government of WA they are serenading, but a nostalgic ideal of better politics lost to memory, like the Wiggles song referenced in the title.
There is hope in Unconscious Drivers though, most notably on the anthemic Punks In The Palace, with its refrain of "there's fire in your heart and light in your eyes". "Punks in the palace" is quite a nice image for Last Quokka - if the palace is our world of unstoppable corporate power, the DIY spirit of independent records and gigs is a subversive reminder of alternative possibilities. There's something of the court jester in them too, making unpalatable truths a bit easier to swallow with a dose of humour and a catchy riff.
Like the threatened but still grinning marsupial, Last Quokka have surveyed our current circumstances of climate breakdown, internet-powered mass-disinformation and right-wing populism ...and still found reasons to laugh - and more importantly reasons to believe.
- Andy Paine.