The Brisbane quartet, The Dollar Bill Murrays, may have a quaintly amusing moniker but on the strength of this EP, they are not here just for fun. This is a strong guitar-driven, melodically powerful EP that shows a high level of maturity and portends a great future. Singer Felix Lindgren has that yelpy, louche delivery essential for any good rock’n’roll band. Guitarist Antii Kovacs creates a wall of memorable riffs interspersed with a satisfying level of fuzz and distortion over the powerful rhythm section of drummer Rachit Moti and bassist Paul Ballam-Cross.
Opening song, “The More You Know” opens with a blast of swaggering attitude – redolent certainly of bands like The Arctic Monkeys as well as The Strokes and more obscure New York bands like the much missed The Bravery.
The next two songs on the EP dial it down a bit and show the band is not a one-trick pony. “I Want Everything” tends towards more of a ballad infused with a degree of melancholy and yearning. “In My Head” puts at the fore Lindgren’s incredible vocal range, ranging from a growl to a soul-laden pop falsetto. And, just in case you are settling down, “Medicine” blasts in with Himalayan levels of riffery and swagger: Kovacs’s guitar providing a fuzzy, scuzzy dirty wall of profoundly satisfying grunge over thundering drums that could bring a corpse to life.
The EP ends with “My Friends The Sky”: as its name suggests, a more trippy psychedelic infused song.
This band is a great and very much welcome exponent of vintage indie guitar rock and a satisfying antidote to the insipid beige that so often masquerades as indie music.
You can buy the EP, released through Valley Heat Records, here, including a limited number in the cassette format. Have a listen to the EP here:
