You’re on a gravel road in the Illawarra hinterlands after dark. There’s lights on in a
couple of places, but you decide to walk a bit faster past the place where the banjo music
is playing, as they look at you funny through their one good eye.
The messy country blues coming from the corrugated iron shed a couple of doors down
also sounds nasty, but somehow more welcoming. They offer you some skull-peeling
hooch, and regale you with tales of the typical concerns: love and drinking – and the
aftermaths thereof.
Obviously there’s some Spencer Jones, Kim Salmon, and Six Ft Hick records over there on
the turntable next to the pot-belly stove, but probably some Tom Waits as well.
Thus, among the typical twanged guitars, a trumpet that seems to blare of remorse is one
distinctive noise through this album. But the thing that probably best gets you through
the next morning’s hangover is a sometimes surprising, sometimes softening, sometimes
chastising, sometimes drinking-beside-you, female balance in some of the songs.
Something like the fists-up growled challenge of Makin’ Friends, gets countered by the
shaky doubt of the title track - with the ladies’ voices a plaintive conscience on the
shoulder. Or, on another tangent, the lemony Lee-and-Nancy duet of I’m So Happy
(You’re Leaving Me).
Meantime, Rowing In A Sinking Boat has some Cave discordance to it - of his early or
most recent work - and the title suggests at the Folk’s goodly way with words. They’re a
rough-edged, but often alluring, beast.
Ross Clelland
Reply
“You wanna be my favourite drug? You gotta be better than all those other drugs.”
So begins the first line of the debut studio album from Wollongong’s The Nice Folk. It’s an intriguing one; resonating with sneering detachment and a lustful, gritty sensuality, it sets the tone perfectly for the remaining nine tracks.
Devil At My Door is a dirty, bluesy folk-rock invocation with a low-down country twang and the gorgeous inclusion of keys, brass and strings. It opens with Josh 9 Lives’ demented-carnival keyboard riff – immediately disturbing but strangely enticing – before Captain Special K’s powerful trumpet joins in. The song swaps between a slow, oozing blues and Lax Charisma’s frenetic guitar rock, always skilfully grounded by the tight rhythm section of Angry A Lot and Stu Bob Slackjaw’s bass and drums, respectively. It feels like a harem in here.
“Won’t let you fuck me – unless you kiss me first.”
In ‘How The Hell Did We Get Here?’, singer Dave Mutton’s deep drawl is softened by Jamie-Leigh Basic’s womanly harmonies for the titular refrain – which is sung between killer lines such as, “This could be the last time hell ever looked this good/Heaven’s always looked just fine/No matter where we stood” – and also on the call-and-answer vocals for ‘I’m So Happy (You’re Leaving Me)’; his dark voice made all the more heavy by the contrast of her lighter touch.
There’s a distinct feeling of Australiana to this record too, but not in a forced or cliched way. Devil At My Door paints a lot of pictures. It evokes dried eucalypt leaves blown into the corners of a bare floorboarded shack, a chair in the corner and a pursued criminal (of the bushranger school of Australian crime) on the porch with a rapidly-emptying bottle. If it were a colour, this record would be a Russell Drysdale red. In fact, this album is like viewing a Drysdale, if you’ll allow such a tangent. It’s a hot, dry dusk, in those few moments between afternoon and evening where – in everywhere but the city – the Australian sky blazes a terrifying crimson. That heavy, humid stillness and the hushed, immobilising heat. A muted sexuality. The tension is overwhelming. Something is always about to happen. Yeah, that’s exactly what this album’s like: it’s tense and sexy and dark, and you want it to last forever.
Devil At My Door makes me proud to say I grew up in Wollongong. That in itself is a big deal. This album is fast becoming my favourite drug.
by Anne H. Cayley
Reply
Recorded in an old farm house nestled in the hills of Wollongong farm lands onto an old analogue reel to reel tape then transfered to digital for the final touches. Engineered & Produced by Stewart 'Leadfinger' Cunningham (Proton Energy Pills, Brother Brick, Asteroid B-612, Yes Men) and released on Music Farmers & distributed by AmpHead 'Devil At My Door' is now available from all cool record shop & to download from most digital outlets.
Reply
Drum Media Review of Guide to Sedation & Isolation. by Ross Clelland..12 june #858
Evidently they have a nasty Idea of 'nice' down Wollongong way. There's a dirty country
blues feeling mostly, but for every Sixfthick in them there's a odd bit of whimsy as a blurt of
drunken brass trips over what sounds like a toy glockenspiel. Further highlights of their
record collections may include Tex, Spencer, and early Ed Kuepper just to further confuse
you and me. Pseudonyms are all the rage as Dave Mutton and the splendidly monikered
Lax Charisma slur tales of alchohol excess and sexual shortage, with the occasional
appearance by Satan and madness.
Reply
Now there 2 new songs 'I'm So Happy (You're Leaving Me)' & 'Love & War' both songs feature on the forthcoming alum 'Devil At My Door' due for release early next year, enjoy.
Reply
Well we have 2 new members & a new Album due out on Music Farmers in April 09,
Jaz has replaced Josh on keyboards & Jamie Leigh Basic brings the sound of Clarinet, Flute & Banjo & also helps me & Lax with the vocals.
The new album engineered by Stewart 'Leadfinger' Cunningham at Tongarra Studio & mixed down at Sonic Rendevous Studio will contain 10 tracks & will be titled 'Devil At My Door' it was mastered by Micheal Carpenter at Turtle Rock and will be Released By Jeb & the team at 'Music Farmers' and distributed by 'Amphead'
so you'll be able to download it straight onto your eye pox, oops Ipod, anyway hope to see you at the next show!
Reply
There's a link to make it easy, come on reveiw and rate us, go on I dare ya!
The Nice Folk are almost finished recording there first full length album. Stay tuned for details soon.
Reply
The Nice Folk / Blog
Devil At My Door Review-The Drum Media- R.Clelland
You’re on a gravel road in the Illawarra hinterlands after dark. There’s lights on in a couple of places, but you decide to walk a bit faster past the place where the banjo music is playing, as they look at you funny through their one good eye. The messy country blues coming from the corrugated iron shed a couple of doors down also sounds nasty, but somehow more welcoming. They offer you some skull-peeling hooch, and regale you with tales of the typical concerns: love and drinking – and the aftermaths thereof. Obviously there’s some Spencer Jones, Kim Salmon, and Six Ft Hick records over there on the turntable next to the pot-belly stove, but probably some Tom Waits as well. Thus, among the typical twanged guitars, a trumpet that seems to blare of remorse is one distinctive noise through this album. But the thing that probably best gets you through the next morning’s hangover is a sometimes surprising, sometimes softening, sometimes chastising, sometimes drinking-beside-you, female balance in some of the songs. Something like the fists-up growled challenge of Makin’ Friends, gets countered by the shaky doubt of the title track - with the ladies’ voices a plaintive conscience on the shoulder. Or, on another tangent, the lemony Lee-and-Nancy duet of I’m So Happy (You’re Leaving Me). Meantime, Rowing In A Sinking Boat has some Cave discordance to it - of his early or most recent work - and the title suggests at the Folk’s goodly way with words. They’re a rough-edged, but often alluring, beast.
Ross Clelland
Reply
Devil At My Door Reiview- Mess and Noise- A.H.Cayley
“You wanna be my favourite drug? You gotta be better than all those other drugs.” So begins the first line of the debut studio album from Wollongong’s The Nice Folk. It’s an intriguing one; resonating with sneering detachment and a lustful, gritty sensuality, it sets the tone perfectly for the remaining nine tracks. Devil At My Door is a dirty, bluesy folk-rock invocation with a low-down country twang and the gorgeous inclusion of keys, brass and strings. It opens with Josh 9 Lives’ demented-carnival keyboard riff – immediately disturbing but strangely enticing – before Captain Special K’s powerful trumpet joins in. The song swaps between a slow, oozing blues and Lax Charisma’s frenetic guitar rock, always skilfully grounded by the tight rhythm section of Angry A Lot and Stu Bob Slackjaw’s bass and drums, respectively. It feels like a harem in here. “Won’t let you fuck me – unless you kiss me first.” In ‘How The Hell Did We Get Here?’, singer Dave Mutton’s deep drawl is softened by Jamie-Leigh Basic’s womanly harmonies for the titular refrain – which is sung between killer lines such as, “This could be the last time hell ever looked this good/Heaven’s always looked just fine/No matter where we stood” – and also on the call-and-answer vocals for ‘I’m So Happy (You’re Leaving Me)’; his dark voice made all the more heavy by the contrast of her lighter touch. There’s a distinct feeling of Australiana to this record too, but not in a forced or cliched way. Devil At My Door paints a lot of pictures. It evokes dried eucalypt leaves blown into the corners of a bare floorboarded shack, a chair in the corner and a pursued criminal (of the bushranger school of Australian crime) on the porch with a rapidly-emptying bottle. If it were a colour, this record would be a Russell Drysdale red. In fact, this album is like viewing a Drysdale, if you’ll allow such a tangent. It’s a hot, dry dusk, in those few moments between afternoon and evening where – in everywhere but the city – the Australian sky blazes a terrifying crimson. That heavy, humid stillness and the hushed, immobilising heat. A muted sexuality. The tension is overwhelming. Something is always about to happen. Yeah, that’s exactly what this album’s like: it’s tense and sexy and dark, and you want it to last forever. Devil At My Door makes me proud to say I grew up in Wollongong. That in itself is a big deal. This album is fast becoming my favourite drug. by Anne H. Cayley
Reply
Debut Album 'Devil At My Door'
Recorded in an old farm house nestled in the hills of Wollongong farm lands onto an old analogue reel to reel tape then transfered to digital for the final touches. Engineered & Produced by Stewart 'Leadfinger' Cunningham (Proton Energy Pills, Brother Brick, Asteroid B-612, Yes Men) and released on Music Farmers & distributed by AmpHead 'Devil At My Door' is now available from all cool record shop & to download from most digital outlets.
Reply
E.P. Review from Drum Media.
Drum Media Review of Guide to Sedation & Isolation. by Ross Clelland..12 june #858
Evidently they have a nasty Idea of 'nice' down Wollongong way. There's a dirty country blues feeling mostly, but for every Sixfthick in them there's a odd bit of whimsy as a blurt of drunken brass trips over what sounds like a toy glockenspiel. Further highlights of their record collections may include Tex, Spencer, and early Ed Kuepper just to further confuse you and me. Pseudonyms are all the rage as Dave Mutton and the splendidly monikered Lax Charisma slur tales of alchohol excess and sexual shortage, with the occasional appearance by Satan and madness.
Reply
NEW SONGS!!
Now there 2 new songs 'I'm So Happy (You're Leaving Me)' & 'Love & War' both songs feature on the forthcoming alum 'Devil At My Door' due for release early next year, enjoy.
Reply
Devil At My Door
Well we have 2 new members & a new Album due out on Music Farmers in April 09, Jaz has replaced Josh on keyboards & Jamie Leigh Basic brings the sound of Clarinet, Flute & Banjo & also helps me & Lax with the vocals. The new album engineered by Stewart 'Leadfinger' Cunningham at Tongarra Studio & mixed down at Sonic Rendevous Studio will contain 10 tracks & will be titled 'Devil At My Door' it was mastered by Micheal Carpenter at Turtle Rock and will be Released By Jeb & the team at 'Music Farmers' and distributed by 'Amphead' so you'll be able to download it straight onto your eye pox, oops Ipod, anyway hope to see you at the next show!
Reply
Unearth us!
There's a link to make it easy, come on reveiw and rate us, go on I dare ya!
The Nice Folk are almost finished recording there first full length album. Stay tuned for details soon.
Reply