- Just when you think you know everything about music something comes and slaps you upside the head. Thankyou Local Authority for taking the road less travelled and finding an unlikely route from The Church to Sun O))). Post-punk can mean so many things but the unusual Brisbane band have taken a wide knowledge of a sprawling genre and created a unique fusion of its sounds (and a few others besides). If you’ve been listening to the band up till now you’ve probably heard singles like Oil Rigs and No Joy which -particularly the former- are a gorgeous throwback to the dark, ringing rock-pop The Church was seducing the world with in the late ‘80s. Local Authority’s debut EP Negative Space is a whole lot more.
That other single, No Joy, is already dropping clues about what to expect. Its ominously slow tempo and grim moodiness hint at the enduring appreciation LA frontman Jacques McGill has for the work of Swans. It’s never quite that crushing though, tempered by a pop-sensibility which references other gothic greats like Robert Smith and, again, The Church.
You’ll need to listen to the rest of the record if you want to hear real thunder. It’s there in spades, right from the opening number, Call. The chorus unleashes a roar of shoegaze guitar, marking McGill as a fan of the genre and specifically, the dark sugar sounds of Slowdive. Many bands go their whole careers with fewer stylistic reference points than this, but Local Authority aren’t done yet. It takes them until the end of Negative Space to work up the courage to unleash it, but final track, Disintegration Fever, explodes with the slow power of a magma flow. The rhythm guitar and bass thunder out great, crushing doom chords, even as the lead and vocals refuse to abandon that enduring sweetness which has followed us here from all the way back at the beginning of the record and refuses to be burned out by the hellish maelstrom.
There are many more inflections to be discovered on this record: a touch of countrified deathrock here, a flourish of theatrical Nick Cave goth there. Local Authority are like a dusty history tome covering twenty years of maladjusted guitar music and yet the record presents it all with a blood-pumping immediacy, making it all happen in thirty-five minutes. It’s difficult not to think of this band as more than just a Local Authority, but it’s easy to say Negative Space is a commanding debut.
- Chris Cobcroft.