Every summer – because there is no season that says Australia more than summer – newspapers, television and radio stations run segments asking us for the most-Australian sounds, the most-Australian songs, the most-Australian artists. It is the usual suspects each time of course, various shades of night sweats and wide open roads, of beer-less pubs and underarms in football clubs, of river camping and beach stomping.
You rarely hear someone say the Cruel Sea. And yet, there may be no band more Australian-sounding than them. They are somewhere between the ultimate surf band and the perfect Sunday afternoon beer garden band, with Tex Perkins’ vocals sounding either, or sometimes simultaneously, laconic and lethal. Having reunited for the 20th anniversary of The Honeymoon is Over in 2013, then again last year – seven years after the death of foundational guitarist James Cruickshanks – the Cruel Sea have now had as many returns as Nellie Melba. This time they’ve come back with their first new album in more than 20 years.
This is a band that says who cares what you are supposed to be doing – just do this instead, this is what matters. That isn’t a straightforward “I don’t give a fuck” attitude – that’s stupid and lazy, and the Cruel Sea have never been either – but rather “I’ll choose what to give a fuck about”.
You’ll find that mood immediately with the country surf How Far I’d Go: in the smooth slide of guitar opening the door for Perkins’ unrolling vocals; in the way space beckons between the guitars of Danny Rumour and Matt Walker (replacing Cruickshanks); and how the rhythm section of drummer Jim Elliott and bassist Ken Gormly (irreplaceable) steps only into a corner of that space. Perkins sings of shame and blame; there is a suggestion of wisdom gained, but enough vagueness about the direction – better or worse? – in the question of “just how far I’d go … for you” – to leave open possibilities.
If the title track looks like a smooth pop diversion – those oohs in the chorus are right creamy – with its twang on tight and its boots cowboyed, check out how Gormly keeps everything lithe, almost liquid. King Of Sorrow (bearing a passing resemblance to the Police’s King Of Pain) wears a layer of hurt as Perkins, without the usual grain in his voice, wonders “if this grief will ever let me go”, but it finds routes out as piano quietly asserts itself and low guitar reclaims the melody.
Reflecting their pre-Perkins roots as an instrumental band, this album eschews a lead voice a couple of times but the principle remains. Or might even be enhanced, especially in Storm Bird. This track has the languid air of a body floating in still water, the drums played low and movement almost nonexistent, while the “Hawaiian” guitar tweaks hopefulness. But there is something slightly menacing about the countervailing bent-string guitar line and the revving of what sounds like an aquatic mower, and something more ambiguous in the wordless moan of indistinct vocals. Everything feels chilled, but you might want to keep an eye on the current.
The Cruel Sea emerged from different strands of Sydney’s post-punk underground, while comfortably leaning into a very pre-punk style and sound – one that flourished in Melbourne but looked beyond the cities. You can see it best in Anyway Whatever, which has some of the parched surface and nourished heart of the Dingoes’ earthy soul. It opens out to wide skies and enervating heat, Perkins bringing a bit more raggedness around the edges and a keyboard hinting at flute, a 1970s throwback. But there is a strain of isolation within it, an emptiness or perhaps the fear of it, that reinforces Perkins’ line about “a new horizon”, and a state of mind like the moon that “does a good job disguising that it’s lonely and cold”.
Heat and bonhomie never quite banish the possibility that we aren’t wholly comfortable here; a balancing of peripheral abundance and internal bareness; holding back from saying all that might be said – and all done at a tempo that says, nah, nothing to worry about. Could it be any more Australian?
Straight Into The Sun is out now (Universal)
