New Music Spotlight: Split System
Melbourne’s Split System just quietly unleashed their absolute ripper of a debut LP Volume 1 into the world.
It’s the latest installment in a series of modern classics to emerge from the city’s flourishing garage rock scene, and a serious contender for album of the year. That being said, we wouldn’t expect anything less from a supergroup consisting of members of Stiff Richards, JRB and the Heaters, and Speed Week, some of Australia’s finest disciples of the Radio Birdman church of three-chord rock and roll.
Recorded remotely via email over the last year, Split System didn’t set out to reinvent the wheel with their first full-length release; the music is formulaic. Predictable. Classic verse-chorus-verse riff-rock. But that’s exactly why we love it.
It’s a tried-and-true format, reminiscent of an iconic sound that we’ll never get sick of. In many ways, Volume 1 epitomizes some of punk rock’s most primal tendencies; Arron Mawson’s incendiary guitar work harkens back to Ron Asheton’s razor-sharp riffage on Raw Power, while lead vocalist Jackson Reid Briggs’s shout-along battle cries might evoke comparisons to a young and pissed Chris Bailey.
Additionally, it came as no surprise to see mixing/mastering savant and certified snot-rock legend Mikey Young listed on the album’s technical credits. Young’s past work with Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Total Control, Ooga Booga and countless other miscellaneous contributions (a staggering 1,297 according to Discogs) helped revitalize the Oz punk/garage scene in the late 2000’s. Everything he touches inevitably turns to gold, and nearly every record being made in Australia that’s worth giving a damn about lands in his hands at some point.
Now we sit back and patiently await Volume 2. Until then, we recommend dropping everything and listening to Volume 1 with cult-like devotion, just as we’ve been doing since its release. —Jackson Todd
[LP artwork above by Deon Slaviero]
