Eddy Current Suppression Ring / S/t

Goner

In a world where indie pop music has gone murky and mopey, songs by garage bands are used to sell cars on TV, and real punk rock is in hiding, it's nice to find a band that didn't get the memo. Of course, they are from Australia. Eddy Current Suppression Ring is four guys who worked together at a vinyl pressing plant in Melbourne and decided to start a band at the company Christmas bash after-party. Live practice tapes soon developed into sold-out singles and increasingly packed shows, and Eddy Current Suppression Ring grew into a uniquely sincere and simple band that creates increasingly indefinable music. Yes, there are discernible influences: The Stooges, Can, The Fall, or Devo. But they don't sound like any of those bands--or anyone else, for that matter.  In 2008, Goner released Primary Colours, Eddy Current Suppression Ring's second album, in North America to widespread critical acclaim. This is their debut that never made it out of Australia. A perfect companion piece for Primary Colours, their self-titled album is filled with all the elements that made Colours so great: razor-sharp guitar, rumbling bass, rat-a-tat drums, and lead singer Brendan Suppression's heavily accented squawk. Take it for a spin. "Three-plus decades after the initial dispensation, one more punk band out of the blue (Melbourne, but it could be anywhere in the English-speaking world) does the same thing punk bands have always done, only not exactly, plus it sounds like they just thought of it last week, three days after they started practicing in the bassist's basement. Off-key chants, minimal chords, spare arrangements, into confusion rather than rage from 'long-term memory loss' to 'a little bit of kissing and a whole lot of hugging.' Some are no longer susceptible to this recurrent miracle. Too bad for them.... A-." --Robert Christgau, MSN/Inside Music  "The best fun house since Fun House... Iggy would approve." --Alternative Press  "... these Melbourne-based Aussies aren't afraid to go straight to the source as they channel the Stooges back catalogue. Beneath the Motor City roar, there are subtler nods to the Fall and Sonic Youth...." --Pitchfork  "From a plainspoken quartet, one of the year's best guitar records. 4 stars." --SPIN

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