78 Saab - Beat of YourDrum

Tue 2nd Nov, 2004 in Music Reviews

The sophomore album is traditionally loaded with enough pressures and difficulties when written in close proximity to the debut, much less when released some three years later as is the case with the latest offering from Sydney’s 78 Saab. Since the release of their beautiful 2001 debut Picture a Hum, Can’t Hear a Sound, the four-piece have remained fairly quiet with this EP, Beat Of Your Drum the first taste of new material.

As anticipated, the band’s follow-up release is well worth the wait. Pristine and distinctly calm in the same vane as Picture a Hum, Can’t Hear a Sound, 78 Saab haven’t noticeably digressed from the niche forged on their debut. The sound is instead distilled: richly emotive, wraithlike almost to the point of being translucent with an almost undefinable quality making the release not out of place amongst similar acts from the 1970’s.

Despite their radio success – most notably the regular airplay of the EP’s title track Beat of Your Drum - 78 Saab aren’t catchy in the traditional sense. Not depending on hooks to reel the listener in, the tunes rely more on charm and allure; a quality surely more difficult to capture.

Testament to Ben Nash’s superior song writing ability is the fact that 78 Saab’s tracks are the kind where you’re more likely to get a random line or lyric stuck in your head rather than merely the chorus. While the choruses such that of Beat Of Your Drum swell nicely before dissipating into the next verse, it’s the subtle, understated moments of 78 Saab that are the most affecting.