Album review by Bec Harbour
The Stress of Leisure don’t write love songs.
Sorry to disappoint you all, but ‘Pulled Pork’ was not even an ode to bearded men’s love of barbequed meats. Their latest opus is no different, there are not love songs on this album (not even the cover song on here – more about that later), what there is, is satire, biting wit and some very pointed observations about society and the community which The Stress of Leisure find themselves in.
The title track is a bouncing, rollicking introduction to the album, ‘It Goes Away With the Heat’, what could they be referring to? It could be our current political, economic and ecological situation (which is very cooked), if you haven’t got air conditioning, it could be your sanity in the humid Queensland weather, we have all gone a little off in the sun like mayonnaise left out at a summer barbeque – this song goes off in good way.
‘Expectation Confrontation’ is also a bit bouncy with Pascalle’s keys providing the bounce. When haven’t we had the expectation of a situation that might turn into a confrontation? Ian’s vocals tell a story of running away from a situation that you don’t want to deal with because it might go a bit south. Thankfully we are anchored by Jane and Jessica’s bass and drums respectively.
‘Man Who Makes a Racist Comment’ is the story of a man who makes a racist comment and continues to dig the hole deeper. This is a more guitar forward track while still loping along gently. ‘Dead Man Golfing’ is back to the very familiar feel of a lot of The Stress of Leisure songs – a more jarring post-punk sound of Television or Talking Heads, who like The Stress of Leisure, don’t quite fit in anywhere with their sound.
‘Hot Lawyer Hot Song’ is a languid song – are we harking back to ‘It Goes Away With The Heat’? Why indeed won’t my mind stop? The simplicity of the melody on this song sucks you right into trying to decipher the storyline behind the music. ‘Song from Nightclub Mosquito’ is such an 80’s Australian indie sounding song that I can almost see the striped shirt with black jeans and some pretty darn pointy shoes.
‘The One I Love’ is an upbeat cover of the REM song with the happy melody contrasting with the well-known heartache of the lyrics (which at one point was a top wedding song before REM pointed out, it wasn’t a nice song for a wedding). Which brings us to the next song – ‘Unhappy Wedding Photographer’ is very observational – set in New Farm Park amongst the roses, it tells the story of seeing an unhappy wedding photographer (Note: as a photographer that sometimes does weddings, this captures the sometimes shenanigans of a wedding well…) hoping that it doesn’t rain, trying to corral the drunk guests to get their pictures taken. It’s in the eyes…
‘Paul’ and ‘Coffee and Internet’ round out the album. ‘Paul’ is wistful and could be sung in a lounge bar setting. ‘Coffee and Internet’ is the new “coffee and cigarettes”, we see people grab a coffee and have a scroll through mostly social media.
The album ending on two quite wistful and almost heartbreaking sounding songs is a full stop to an album that has been low-key upbeat sounding most of the way through. While each song is self-contained, I feel that the journey that It Goes Away With The Heat takes you on is best experienced from beginning to end. There is the elements of the art-rock jarring sounds to this album, but overall, this is a softer sounding album from The Stress of Leisure, but don’t let the melodies fool you, there is just as much satire and observations of society packed into this one as any of their other work.
ALBUM LAUNCH – Cave Inn 4 October 2024
