The Smallest Room
  • Menu

    Music
    Arts
    About
    Travel
    Teach

  • MUSIC
    • record reviews
    • LIVE REVIEWS
    • features
  • ARTS
  • About
  • Travel
  • Teach
0

Disappears – Era

First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, October, 2013


Despite the shadows creeping from its core, were it released 30 years ago, Era would not have alarmed Tipper Gore. The hair metal Gore hated was a hammed-up celebration of vice where Era is vice’s compulsive inner voice; the grit without the glam; the stalker’s sick longing without conquest’s high-five.

Reminiscent of The Horrors, Disappears’ fourth record was written during a gloomy Chicago winter, explaining its dank, underbelly feel. It channels English post-punk acts who deconstructed dub and did a lot with a little – reggae-style guitar is sharp and flinty while dub’s reverb and delay are used to spook not to soften.

Singer (stalker?) Brian Case repeats “You think about her all the time” (‘Elite Typical’) and “If you go, I go” (‘Ultra’) in a distant and dead-eyed voice until the words’ simplicity darken into sinister purpose, while lyrics like “You feel the same but they’re all different now” on the minimalist, industrial closing track ‘New House’ are disturbing on first utterance.

[rating:4]


phentermine results

Share Tweet

Kate

You Might Also Like

  • LIVE REVIEWS

    Floors of Heaven underwater concert (Woolloomooloo Bay)

  • features

    The ‘Yolŋu surf rock’ of Yothu Yindi’s next generation

  • LIVE REVIEWS

    William Crighton (The Great Club)

Search

Twitter

Tweets by @smallestroom

Recent articles

  • Floors of Heaven underwater concert (Woolloomooloo Bay) February 19, 2022
  • The ‘Yolŋu surf rock’ of Yothu Yindi’s next generation February 17, 2022
  • A gentle hidden gem: a visitor’s guide to the NSW far south coast January 8, 2022
  • ‘An inscrutable and open-ended riddle’: the life and art of Jeffrey Smart December 11, 2021
  • Trekking the Great Ocean Walk: ‘Stand with no land mass between your sweaty skin and Antarctica’ December 7, 2021
  • MUSIC
    • record reviews
    • LIVE REVIEWS
    • features
  • ARTS
  • About
  • Travel
  • Teach

My name is Kate Hennessy. I am a freelance arts and travel writer and music critic. I contribute to Guardian Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age, The Saturday Paper, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Wire (UK), NME and more.

Latest posts

  • Floors of Heaven underwater concert (Woolloomooloo Bay)

    February 19, 2022
  • The ‘Yolŋu surf rock’ of Yothu Yindi’s next generation

    February 17, 2022
  • A gentle hidden gem: a visitor’s guide to the NSW far south coast

    January 8, 2022
  • ‘An inscrutable and open-ended riddle’: the life and art of Jeffrey Smart

    December 11, 2021
  • Trekking the Great Ocean Walk: ‘Stand with no land mass between your sweaty skin and Antarctica’

    December 7, 2021

Twitter

Tweets by @smallestroom

Search