The new single ‘Terracotta’ from Naarm/Melbourne outfit The Pretty Littles is singular delight – jingle jangle guitars drive a rollicking track with soaring vocals and a louche delivery, inflected with a larrikin antipodean flavour. There are elements of bands like Goo Goo Dolls, Teenage Fanclub and REM and more antipodean bands like Paul Kelly.
The lyrics keenly and beautifully reflect this antipodean flavour:
Yeah and I remember running for my life
through moonah trees of all the things forgotten
that’s still at my heels biting
and I don’t know what it means to remember happiness like a dream
a reservoir, an abundance, a land with no boundaries
now a problem buried is a problem sorted
it’s circus tricks but the circuits shorted
just fill the cup
it’s never enough
it’s terracotta warriors acting tough
it’s terracotta warriors
terracotta warriors
Jack from the band says of the track:
I wrote this about a town on the Bellarine Peninsula. Nostalgia can be cruel and nostalgia can be kind. Sometimes it can be confronting going back to a place you’ve been a hundred times and realising just how drastically things have changed in your life. How something that felt like yesterday, is suddenly 25 years ago. Most of the time it doesn’t matter so much. They’re just a jolt, but sometimes they knock you around a bit.
This is a track that is guaranteed to put a spring in the step and has the whiff of gum trees and the soft feel of dappled sunshine, elbows in the breeze on the open roads of outback Australia.
The track is out today and available to download and stream here.
It comes off the band’s forthcoming album ‘Mulga Wire’ via Endless Recordings and Community Music. available to pre-order here. The band will be launching the album live – tickets here and details below.
Feature Photograph: Rick Clifford
