Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Skegss, Ratbag Records/Warner Australia 2018.
This is the debut album for Byron Bay surf/garage rock band Skegss.
It follows hot on the heels of four very good EPs and a touring program that has seen the band play gigs across Australia and also tour North America.
My own Mess features 15 new surf punk songs that are deceptively simple but somehow they worm their way into your brain.
The Skegss sound is minimalist and that’s part of their allure.
The band consists of Ben Reed on vocals and guitar, Toby Cregan on bass, and Jonny Lani on drums.
The recording process places those three instruments front and centre and it seems that very few overdubs have been added.
The album artwork was done by Jack Irvin who has worked with the band on their previous releases.
The Skegss sound and approach is part of a growing movement that’s shunning today’s manufactured sound.
English record company Dirty Water Records was one of the first companies to see the potential of this group of musicians.
Other companies are jumping on the bandwagon in Europe, America, and now in Australia.
In many ways it’s an inevitable outcome of the over production and falseness that’s crept into much modern music and it explains the continuing demand for authentic live performance.
Punk music was itself a grass-roots rebellion against the self-indulgence, overblown egos, and mediocrity of much 70s rock, particularly in the glam and prog periods.
Maybe we’re seeing the beginning of a new shake-up.
Triple J have already picked up the first two singles from the album, Up In The Clouds, and Smogged Out and I have every confidence that this album will cement the band’s reputation as one of the hottest up and coming acts in the country.
The boys also have a social conscious because they are donating $1 from every ticket sold for their Australian tour to the Mark Hughes Foundation for brain cancer research.
