Gold Class
It’s You
November 6 2015 (Felte)
8/10
Words: Richard O’Hagan
Melbourne’s post-punks Gold Class are a little mass of contradictions. There’s a laid-back, yet intense, ferocity about everything that they do: just enough to make its point. And here, on this debut album, they go all out for gold.
With their sound built upon the thudding drums of Mark Hewitt and the slicing guitars of Evan James Purdey, it is a formula which wavers little over the course of ‘It’s You’. Overpowering all, is Adam Curley’s dark, rich, vocal, part Morrissey, part Jim Kerr, but mostly the deepest and most doom-laden since Andrew Eldrich was in his pomp.
The tone for the album is set right away with the stark ‘Furlong’ with mesmerizing bassline, before moving into the frenetic, Smiths-on-speed propulsive punk of 'Life As A Gun’. Things then turn, impossibly, even more gothic with ‘Bite Down’ and its refrain of "If your heart isn’t in it".
One thing that Gold Class are surprisingly adept at is stopping their songs sounding too much like one another. There are only two amidst the ten tracks that don’t have a moment which makes you sit up and take notice. Otherwise, whether it is the downbeat ‘Half Moon Over’, the subtle shifts of key and tempo on ‘The Soft Delay’, or simply unleashing their inner Nick Cave on ‘Pro Crank’, there is something entertaining everywhere. They even get all philosophical on piano-led closer ‘Shingles (Stay A While)’. If you like your music stripped back and hard-edged, then this is the album for you.
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