We’ve been closely following the magnificent The Petrov Affair for a few years, enticed by their brand of jingle jangle shimmering pop. It is a great pleasure therefore to listen to their debut album, ‘Men Are A Luxury item’, which collects a few past singles and some fresh new tracks to create something very satisfying.
Singer/Keyboard player Murray Lee says of the album:
The album unfolds as a loose song cycle exploring romantic and intimate relationships—and the insecurities that often accompany them. At its core, it’s a reflection on human flaws—a half-serious, half-playful commentary on the human condition
Opening track ‘Assembly Point’ is an instrumental with a vocal layers over a soft piano, acoustic guitars and clattering percussion with a wild synth riff, a gentle and soothing introduction.
Title track ‘Men Are a Luxury Item’ has delicious multi-layered instrumentation that ripples and folds with a complexity that mirrors a piece of Gamelan music, creating something airy and spacious. There is a haunting melancholy threaded throughout: a sort of world weary tone that recalls The National. The vocals are touched with a sardonic and self-deprecating blush, distant, almost observational.
Lee says the track is a:
…candid reflection on being single after a long time, questioning why anyone would choose to date someone riddled with insecurity. ‘I know that I’m a competent lover’, he says, ‘baby well I’m not so sure.’
There are touches of antipodean bands like The Church or Models mixed in with eighties bands like Magazine or Gang of Four – a sort of intelligent art pop melange that is atmospheric and slightly distorted in the most pleasurable way imaginable.
The lyrics match the tone – icy and remote, self-deprecating:
She started thinking about a future
After three years of living in the past
While there’s another life behind her eyes
Her memories are fading fast
She said, ‘men are a luxury item
I think I’ve learned to live without’
I said, ‘while I may be tough to maintain,
I’m worth the grief I’ve handed out’
The accompanying video takes up the surreal psychedelic elements of the track, presenting a twisted kaleidoscope of images as the band plays – quizzical and louche:
‘Protest Glories’ puts on full display the gentle humour that threads throughout the album – a romantic tale of personal relationships and obsessions told in a manner that brings to mind the archness of Robert Forster from The Go-Betweens:
She ran a key
Down an illegally parked Mercedes
Sprayed McDonalds door
With a clown size cock and balls
And I was in love, love, love, love, love.
There is a Beatlesesque brilliance to ‘White Out’ with its poppy melancholic blush that skips and trips over a bubbling piano and soaring chorus whereas ‘The Ballet’ has a more muscular thrum with wild violin scraping and restrained chaos like a triumphal march where the participants have been imbibing illicit substances. Glorious harmonies thread throughout underpinned by distant thunderous guitars. it’s a psychedelic kaleidoscope of sound.
‘Unseasonable November Snow’ is as atmospheric as the title suggests, Lee’s vocals hushed above a wash of feedback and plucking guitars.
‘Never Trust A Man’ continues with the common element of delicate cynicism delivered with an arched eyebrow and a self-deprecating style, a fairground whirl in the background over jangling guitars and anthemic melodies:
Never trust, a man who’s a Tory
Never trust a man who tells tall stories
Never trust a man who constantly preens
Never trust a man with too many screens
Never trust a guy with a luxury car
Never trust a guy with a luxury car
You can, never trust a man.
The purest of intelligent pop delivered with the panache of a band like XTC.
‘Back On Top’ has a stately and yearning piano riff spine that creates a haunting pattern hovering at the edges of the song, while the guitars add a dirty, scuzzy undercurrent. There are delicious harmonies that add to the wry, weary vocal tones that bring the apparently hopeful and optimistic lyrics down to the ground – my confidence is growing because tonight my friends they seem to care. A clever tension between hope and the cynical and sober reality about the exigencies of life and transience of happiness:
I’m back on top
this might only last a while
just enjoy this short trial
I’m back on top
This is a delightfully framed sentiment delivered via a beautifully reflective instrumentation:
‘Memento Park’ drifts over gentle guitars and a reflective delivery while final track ;Mission competed’ is a dreamy fugue with distorted distant vocals in the ether to bid farewell, seeped in melancholy and atmosphere.
‘Men Are A Luxury’ is a dreamy satisfying debut that displays a strong pop sensibility that is burnished by intelligent lyrics and soaring melodies. It is distinctive pop too – elements of antipodean indie strong in the genes and yet quite different from anything else around.
The album is out now and available to download and stream through the link above and here.
You can catch the band on the final part of their tour to promote the album here:
27 March – MoshPit, Newtown (Sydney)
w/ Golden Fang + Tired AF
Tickets here
