Baseball - Animal Kingdom

Mon 25th Feb, 2008 in Music Reviews

Baseball are a quartet from Melbourne who are difficult to classify as they are signed to an independent label but their music is too fast and furious to be pigeon-holed into the ‘indie’ genre. Plus, they proudly champion the DIY-ethic as the way to strive in the current musical climate, much like the punks who were the vanguards for the genre. Yet their music also boasts some rhythm violin playing courtesy of their lead vocalist, Thick Passage, which means their music is too melodic for the world of punk. Never are these contradictions more apparent than on their debut album, Animal Kingdom.

The release boasts some impressive cover art and includes fourteen tracks. The driving force behind the songs are some incendiary guitars that grab you by the throat, punctuated by the aforementioned violin-playing and offset by some interesting vocal interplay between Passage and bassist, Monika Fikerle (and Fikerle’s melodic tones sometimes give a welcome reprieve away from Passage’s screeching, distressed banshee vocals.)

Added to the hodgepodge of styles is a diverse range of lyrical content encompassing English, ancient Aramaic and Arabic with the lyrics to tracks, I Have Come To Ravish My Betrothed and Faith Like A Cross- Trust Like A Flag adapted from a text originating from a 14th Century Lor Tribe in South West Iran and a Christian Foot Soldier’s diary, respectively.

Opening track and single, Soft Boy Factory has a creative concept as it is a song about a sausage factory producing alpha males that is combined with a musical style similar to The Scare. Conversely, the subsequent track, Lines and Lines and Lines produces a trance-like state in the listener thanks to the repetition of some simple lyrics. Meanwhile, She Makes Cookies feels like an Irish jig sped up to eleven and Mozart and The Whale initially ambles along and is Pixies-esque before culminating in another high-energy frenzy.

In sum, the release is a powerfully eclectic one that is impossible to categorise and is a most noteworthy debut effort.