Surf City, The Laurels, MilkTeddy @ The Workers Club,Melbourne (11/09/2010)

Thu 16th Sep, 2010 in Gig Reviews

In the past Melbourne’s Milk Teddy have been criticised for hiding amongst the fuzz and scuzz of their sweet guitar ditties, but the local outfit that opened on Saturday night (and ultimately almost stole it) have clearly been busy shaking off the lo-fi cloak and refining some darn good pop songs. Instead of inspiring words like messy and shambling, Milk Teddy seemed confident, classy and still lovable as all hell. They’ve retained the fey nature that likened their songwriting to twee poppers Beat Happening, but shed the shambling tag.

Milk Teddy are led by Tom Mendelovits’ sugar daddy vocals, with guitars, keys, bass, soft drums and piano accordion providing rich backing. Mendelovits dedicated one song to Grant McLennan, the “poet laureate of indie pop”; the song, I Can Hear It When You Sing, wields the lyrical hooks that warm the soul like those of McLennan’s best penned. Blown away.

The Laurels are a shoegaze band from Sydney, launching from the Workers’ stage at probably double the volume of Milk Teddy. The four-piece work the nineties slacker aesthetic almost to the point of parody. The guitars are loud, swirling, and played out through a ballet of effects pedal stomping on the stage floor.

Despite the guitar-heavy sound, sharp drumming from Kate Wilson and some devilish bass lines care of Conor Hannan give the Laurels more grunt than the stadium-pysch of fellow Aussie’s Tame Impala. The Saints have been cited as an influence here, giving an antipodean kick to The Laurels’ loving re-hashings of My Bloody Valentine/Spacemen 3, and injecting their live show with just enough brutality to offset the mellower moments.

The swapped vocals of Luke O’ Farrell and Piers Cornelius worked well, breaking up a set that at times threatened to feel same-ish and a little too trance-like. That said, tracks like Turn On Your Mind and the ecstatic closer were jizz-your-pants-glorious.

Lightening things back up again, Surf City are Auckland’s hottest produce at the moment, busy sending blogs-a-flurry thanks to their inspired re-take on the surf/pysch revival and the great Flying Nun legacy of NZ pop. Their debut album Kudos has just come out, and these magnificent tracks filled a set that was blisteringly good.

With each track generally clocking in at no more than three or four minutes, Surf City capture the timeless charm of a great pop song. They chug along at an idler’s pace, kicking at the sand, as song after song promises to be your new summer soundtrack.

It’s impossible to talk about Surf City without reference to The Clean (their #2 Myspace friend), who still arguably present the template for Kiwi pop. Surf City adopt their elders’ love of Kinks’ melodies and Velvet Underground’s sonic experimentation, crafting ragged psych-pop both studied and stupendous. Rather than sounding simply derivative though, Surf City work within the template to reveal new opportunities for the sublime Kiwi pop song.

Their strong melodies are lathered in a generous spread of ooh-ooh’s and reverb, nostalgic and warm, with Davin Stoddard’s slacker vocals and harmonies as fuzzed up as Josh and Jamie Kennedy’s guitars. Logan Collins’ sharp drums keep it all tight. Songs like Crazy Rulers of the World or Kudos were upbeat and lovable, as vocal’s shimmy over a wash of warm guitars, and Autumn simply had my knees giving way.

CHECK OUT PHOTOS FROM THE NIGHT HERE