TIM ROGERS & THE TEMPERANCE UNION - Ghost Songs / Dirty Ron (2005)

FORMAT: FLAC
ARTWORK: FULL
DOWNLOAD:

DISC 1:
PART 1
PART 2

DISC 2:
PART 1
PART 2

ARTWORK




Review by Shaun Carney:

Tim Rogers spent too many years shuffling between being an assertive band leader and a world-weary troubadour. The You Am I frontman has come up with a solution: a double album, one quiet, one rocking. It works a treat. Rogers takes his writing and singing somewhere interesting. On both discs he has pulled back on the affected swagger that in recent years has slipped over the line into sloppiness. The crisp, disciplined guitar work of Shane O'Mara is a great match for Rogers' appealing bloke-next-door tales of lapsed relationships and too much drinking. A return to form.

	Ghost Songs
1-1	Dumb
1-2	Wild One
1-3	Obviously
1-4	Ghost Songs
1-5	Broken Suff
1-6	Ridin Between My Place & Yours
1-7	Social Pages
1-8	Paperboy
1-9	Tonight
	Dirty Ron
2-1	Do It Again
2-2	My Brother's Room
2-3	I's Rather Be Krund
2-4	Rats
2-5	Kickin' Stones
2-6	Shit
2-7	Kalgoorlie
2-8	Simple Things
2-9	Who You Settin' Up House For?
2-10	The Singer Songwriter Blues

THE DAISYCUTTERS - Awake Among The Sleepers (2004)

FORMAT: FLAC
ARTWORK: FULL
DOWNLOAD:
PART 1
PART 2






Review by Jae Harrison:

First appearances can be quite deceptive. First of all, the title Awake Among The Sleepers sounds like a really good title for a really good indie-pop album. The artwork – a single man with his scooter, alone on a sprawling beach at sunrise. This album is going to really nice. Wrong. The Daisycutters are mean. The Daisycutters have had their hearts broken and broken many hearts themselves, but they don’t want to quietly strum an acoustic guitar and mourn about it. They get nasty. The Daisycutters eat people like you for breakfast.

The Daisycutters were originally unearthed by Triple J in 1999 with the song Kiss Me Stupid, an excellent pop song that signalled only good things for the band. After 5 years of sporadic releases and shows around the country Awake Among The Sleepers is the debut album for the band. Awake Among The Sleepers is essentially a rock album with a firm grounding in the world of indie-pop.

It’s hard to say whether the band would be better off to take the full step into the guitar-driven rock sound this album kicks off with on We Deserve Better and Buy Some Time, because quieter moments such as Always The Bridesmaid Never The Bride and Here’s To All That Could Have Been Tonight are the charming kind of tunes that were expected – and they certainly know how to pull off a charming pop song. The thing about this album is that so often you fear it is going to slide into mediocrity, particularly on the longer tracks, only to be redeemed by kickin tracks like A Bang And Not A Whisper and We Don’t Need Ya.

On first listen it would be easy to dismiss this as a lacking effort from yet another rock revival band, but most tracks are so earnest and genuine that you can’t but be pulled in by the honesty of the lyrics and the catchy riffs. A Bang And Not A Whisper in particular is an album highlight with gunfire drums, jangly guitars and honestly entertaining lyrics:

Though it stung at the time it was not without merit
I was a prick at the time and you needed a reaction

– in reference to being called the c-word.

Lead single I Eat People Like You For Breakfast isn’t the best track here, but it would probably sum up the sound of the entire album pretty well – slow, vocally dominant verses with a more uptempo chorus. It is one of the minority of tracks that fall into the divide between the few quiet moments and the better rock songs that seem to be more filler than lead single material. There is still enough quality on this album to wonder why radio and television don’t pick up and support Australian music like this over the overproduced tripe constantly being beaten up as the next big thing. The Daisycutters could really grow from here, the potential is shown on most tracks, and realised on some. The band does deserve better.

1	We Deserve Better	3:44
2	Buy Some Time	4:03
3	I Hate All Our Favourite Songs	3:53
4	I Eat People Like You For Breakfast	4:08
5	You & Me...We're Not Going Anywhere	4:09
6	Sunday Morning I'm Not Coming Down	3:33
7	Always The Bridesmaid Never The Bride	5:04
8	A Bang And Not A Whisper	3:54
9	We Don't Need Ya	3:15
10	Cool Your Shoes	5:11
11	Here's To All That Could Have Been Tonight	6:10
12	(Untitled Hidden Track)	1:28

HELL TO PAY - Steal It (1992)

FORMAT: FLAC
ARTWORK: FULL
DOWNLOAD:
PART 1
PART 2





Words by Cowboy Col:

Hell To Pay were a Melbourne band who existed from around 1991 to 1993. They were, to coin an often over used phrase, ‘the real deal’.
Any band that included both Ian Rilen and Spencer P Jones in their ranks was always gonna be top shelf, and so they were. If you wanna talk inner city supergroup, then look no further than this lot. Rilen was on guitar and vocals. Spencer Jones was on lead guitar and vocals. Jon Schofield (ex Grooveyard, Paul Kelly) was on bass, and former JJJ DJ Tony Biggs was on drums. Cathy Green of X also played bass on the album.
The band were signed to Red Eye Records in Sydney and released a CD single called ‘Saints & Kings’ in 1991, and an album, ‘Steal It’ in 1992. Both are long out of print, but are essential if you are a fan of either Jones or Rilen. All the tunes are gritty and real and highlight Rilen’s talent as a writer.

1	Two Days Off, Five Days On
2	Steal It
3	Booze To Blame
4	Addicted To You
5	Change
6	Don't You Go Away
7	Easy
8	Everybody Everything
9	80 Mph Blues
10	Light Me Up
11	Radio On
12	401
13	Telling Lies
14	Where Our Love Ends

THE MORNING AFTER GIRLS - 2 (2005)

FORMAT: FLAC
ARTWORK: FULL
DOWNLOAD

1	Chasing Us Under	6:16
2	Hi - Skies	3:16
3	Interlude	2:40
4	Always Mine	4:28
5	Fall Before Waking	3:51
6	Slowdown	4:02

BOOSTER - The Real Deal (2007)

FORMAT: FLAC
ARTWORK; FULL
DOWNLOAD:
PART 1
PART 2






Big riffs..No bullshit. Adelaide three piece Booster are kick arse rock with added vitamins. If meaty guitar rock is your thing and you like it fat and beefy, then check out the bands debut album The Real Deal. Booster entered the scene three years ago, and are known for their awesome live show, complete with singing drummer! The band have supported the likes of Spiderbait, TISM, The D4, Machine Gun Fellatio, Airborne and The Casanovas.

 

For Track Listing Click On Scan Below:



X - X-Spurts The 1977 Recordings (2011)

FORMAT: FLAC
ARTWORK: FULL
DOWNLOAD:
PART 1
PART 2






Previously unreleased 10 track album

Two years before X's classic debut X-Aspirations, the original four piece line-up of Ian Rilen, Steve Lucas, Ian Krahe and Steve Cafiero laid down the 10 tracks that make up this album. Recorded live in a lounge room on a borrowed four-track, this recording is a potent reminder of their powerful chemistry and a fascinating early glimpse of a legendary band.

Unfortunately, X’s momentum was halted by the shock passing of Krahe in May 1978. “As far as I’m concerned, that four-piece line-up of X was the definitive edition, Ian Krahe was a terrible loss that no-one every really got over. He was a unique player with a special sense of melody.” Steve Lucas, 2011.

Luckily, after languishing for years in somebody’s wardrobe, the original four-track tapes tracks were found, baked and mixed (on 70’s equipment) and now everyone has an opportunity to experience what just a lucky few in Sydney in 1977 did. Some of these songs would turn up on later X albums, but in much different versions and many are unique to this album. Mixed and mastered from the original four-track masters by Gil Matthews in September 2011

1. You Don't Like Me
2. Infamy
3. Slash Your Wrists
4. Runaway
5. Losing
6. TV Cabaret Roll
7. Hey You
8. Revolution
9. Degenerate Boy
10. One More Chance

THE BAKELITE AGE - Return Of The Magical Molerat (2007)

FORMAT: FLAC
ARTWORK: FULL
DOWNLOAD:
PART 1
PART 2






Review by TJ Honeysuckle:

Link “Meanie” McLennan seems to have been a fixture on the Melbourne scene for decades. Wait a minute- he has. His good humour and casual attitude to life might just be a clever front for something steely inside- since the demise of former acts the Meanies and the Tomorrow People he’s kept the Bakelite Age on the rails for a few years now, and now they have managed to produce album number two. And it’s excellent.

Following a label change from In-Fidelity, this has been recorded & produced by Loki Lockwood, as are so many Spooky releases - and if there’s a better, more sympathetic producer working around town right now I’d like to know who it is.

The Bakers (as their friends call them) often seem to be working in a kind of goofy private code, and sometimes the lyrics sound like they were written on acid, but there is no denying the power of this set.

Although their name may conjure up images of art deco radios squawking out Rudy Vallee show tunes, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The sound they summon up ranges from fairly standard garage-y rock to a few darker and deeper moments, and there’s a bracket of three tunes planted smack in the middle of this disc that are as strong, catchy and interesting as anything you’ll hear anywhere else this year.

“Tinker Blues” is full of clanging off-key chords, but comes together every few bars for the choruses. There’s a lazy loping rhythm to “Cooler King”, which is mostly spoken rather than sung, and “Brotherhood of the Bowel” (no, I don’t know what that is, and I don’t really want to, thanks) is a careering bluesy thing.

There’s a lyric sheet/insert to help you decipher what this is all about but frankly I gave up- it’s better to leave it opaque, to snatch a line out here and there where you can- “I feel like Mother Theresa on Guy Fawkes night”, or “ Eeny meeny miney mo, catch a hooker by the toe”, for instance- and just enjoy the squalling of that home made rectangular guitar.

For Track Listing Click On Scan Below: