Review - Names - Names (English version)

The town of Rye, a seaside resort and paradise for kitesurfers, located on the Mornington Peninsula in the state of Victoria, Australia, appeared on my personal map of Australian rock with the explosion of Legless Records, founded by Stiff Richards bassist Arron Mawson, which released highly influential records by Cutters, Doe St., Split System and others, as well as Stiff Richards themselves, of course. These records are mostly associated with punk and its subgenres, which have left a very specific mark on the music produced in this town located in the traditional territory of the Boon wurrung (Bunurong) people of the Kulin nation.

With some surprise, but perhaps not so much given how varied Australian rock is these days, I came across Names while browsing Bandcamp, attracted precisely by the city they come from.

The Rye sextet has tenuous links with the world of Legless, perhaps only with Doe St., because it offers a mixture of psychedelia, alt-country and rock “n” roll in a sound that is apparently chaotic but still seems well thought out.

After two digital singles, “This You” and “Sit Back Down”, released last year, which highlighted the rock/alt-country side of the band, their eponymous debut album, just released, highlights the psychedelic side of the band, completing the overall vision that makes Names' music particularly interesting.

Opening with a short hypnotic instrumental, the album features two of the singles that preceded the album's release. “Familiar” starts with a bass and drum line reminiscent of Motorpsycho, launching into a hypnotic ride that blurs the boundaries between how we are seen and who we really are, highlighting the boundaries between identity, perception and the masks we wear.  A song that is part confession, part confrontation, it continues halfway through the album with the second part called ‘Stranger’.

‘Bygones’ is certainly one of the highlights of the album, a song about wounded forgiveness and the attempt - and perhaps failure - to move on without closing the door on the past. The song's alt-punk vibe seems almost joyful with its rhythm changes and Paul Gray and Jarrod Dexter's guitars chasing each other, while the alternating male and female vocals of Fergus Lawson and Sammy Rayne make it extremely radio-friendly, despite the not-so-sunny theme.

The album then returns to psychedelic atmospheres with the instrumental “Burra”, which plays on Hannes Lackmann's percussion in the foreground but is disturbed by Jarrod Dexter's synths, setting the stage for the long psychedelic country ballad “Extremely Weathered”, which recalls the excellence of bands such as the Walkabouts and flows seamlessly into the hypnotic raga of ‘Opinion Den’.

The instrumental ‘Pacific Gull’ opens side B of the album with almost folk-like acoustic atmospheres, in which we glimpse another of the many faces of Norwegian band Motorpsycho. Who knows if the Names have ever heard them.

‘Tick It Up’ is another of the key tracks on this album. An enveloping ballad played on Nick Davidson's bass and drums with guitar explosions in the crescendo moments, it tells of the pursuit of the Australian dream and the dichotomy with a “normal” life in which one is content to have a home, a job and a family, while continuing to dream of a “better” life embodied in the desire for new and beautiful things. The protagonist, in fact, asks himself: Maybe we need a new car and a caravan/and damn, wouldn't it be nice to have a boat too? With all the bitterness expressed like a mantra in the refrain of Tick It Up, “You want everything but you don't give a damn/If you don't have money, just tick it up/Tick it up, tick it up/All day long you hope for luck/Tick it up, tick it up/Save and hope for luck”.

This is followed by another precious ballad, ‘Torres Del Paine’, which confirms the excellent songwriting skills of a band that, rather than being at the beginning of their recording career, seems to have a well-established career behind them. The album draws to a close with another psychedelic instrumental, ‘It Tends to Feel Like A Lifetime’, played out on a tight rhythm, sparkling guitars and synths and keyboards competing on equal terms.

The closing track of such an electric album is very strange indeed, entrusted to a ballad like “Raindrops”, which is almost entirely acoustic and seems to hark back to the best rock songwriting, with a melody that sticks in your mind from the very first listen. However strange and seemingly out of context, the closing track Raindrops is the perfect seal for an album that is as surprising as it is varied in its successive atmospheres, which are certainly well focused by a cohesive band that has certainly achieved its goal and from which we can expect many good things in the future.