GOLDMINDS - Signals LP

180 gram vinyl.

"The Melbourne quartet may have an attitude more punk than prim – certainly singer Courtney Constantinou, aka Coco has little time for politesse – but so far their debut album makes it very clear that while the ‘70s indeed play a big part in their thinking, their favoured territory is cranked chords, plundering drums and regularly piercing guitar overlaid over blues footings. To which you could add a dash or three of working class resistance, the merest nod to some psych, and some grittiness you don’t get in art school.

You know, the sort of thing made a generation or two back by bands whose preference was for thick moustaches, wide jeans and utilitarian black and leather – a look coincidently reproduced on the cover of this record.

And the playback here offers real crunchiness, from Brendan West’s Zeppelin-ish riff that leads us into Deadwood’s heavy mid-tempo swing and the predatory pulse of Til The End (where Constantinou’s voice is distorted just enough to play on the robotic spectrum), to the marching beat and disdainful dismissal of Don’t Waste Your Time and the Midlands-goes-tribal machine feel and low humming vocals of The Spirit Knows." - Bernard Zuel