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Rush to Relax

Eddy Current Suppression Ring

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Back home in Australia, Eddy Current Suppression Ring have been hailed as the lackadaisical leaders of Melbourne’s recent garage- rock uprising. That sounds about right, given the way the group’s turned the act of not trying too hard into a veritable art form. Case in point: their third LP, a prickly/perplexing listen that starts with a teeth-gnashing jam (“Anxiety”) and ends with nearly 20 minutes of cackling seagulls and softly breached shores (the pure moods portion of the title track). In other words, it’s a literal translation of the album title Rush to Relax, a balancing act between sucker- punch songs (“Walked Into a Corner,” "Isn't It Nice") and the sensitive side of chord-chopping confessionals like “Gentleman” and “I Can Be a Jerk.” And then there are the two cuts that truly sound like curveballs: the smothered rhythm section and dog-detonating guitar solo of “Tuning Out” and the locked, drone-on groove of “Second Guessing.” Considering the entire thing was recorded in a day — six hours, to be exact — it’s as if the band is hell bent on reminding us that they can do more in an afternoon than most acts would in a week.

Customer Reviews

Patio Punk revival?

I think not. What at first seems like a beefier more fleshed out version of say groups like the Dead Milkmen or The Minutemen, Eddy Current Suppression Ring's Rush to Relax soon turns into a fool on rock assault. You should think of them as beefier, more fleshed out versions of The Arctic Monkeys or King's of Leon with way worse sounding vocals. The vocals almost become secondary in some parts. Did I mention the musicianship? It is out of this world. Checkout the guitar solos on Tuning Out. These guys hold nothing back.

Putting the Rock Back in Punk Rock

Let's write a little speculative fiction, shall we? Let's say that John William Cummings was born with no hands, thus could not innovate the blitzkrieg downstroke. And let's say that Malcolm McLaren decided that he had an even better idea of how to sell clothes than putting together a rock band. If these things happened, does punk rock, as we know it, still happen?

Maybe it does in Australia. First wave Aussie-punk archetypes the Saints and Radio Birdman were performing as early as 1974, concurrent with the earliest CBGBs bands. They released their respective debuts back in 1976, both pre-dating vinyl from any UK punk group.

However, it's arguable that what the Saints, Birdman and their children were doing wasn't especially different from what was already going on in the rock scene down under. Bands like Coloured Balls and AC/DC weren't the bloated, in-need-of-shunting dinosaurs that Pink Floyd and Led Zep were. They were making some of the most vital, alive rock music of the mid-70s. Unlike in the UK and US, this new generation of Aussie rockers were more or less continuing in a straight line from their forebears rather than starting a revolution. Before "punk" existed, they had already figured out hardcore rock n roll in the land of Oz: keep it simple and dirty, attack with brute force and don't forget to swing. Ugly Things' Johan Kugelberg calls it "grillfat rock." I'm not sure exactly what this implies other than it probably goes best with lager.

Melbourne's Eddy Current Suppression Ring are firmly in the above tradition. Their third album Rush To Relax comes out today in US through the reliably fantastic Goner label. Needless to say it's a more than worthy purchase for anyone who likes their rock music stripped down and nasty.

In my post on 2008's best records, I wrote of ECSR's prior album, Primary Colours:

"Sometimes it's hard to explain exactly why a band stands above the pack. Eddy Current Suppression Ring plays garage punk, plain and simple and lean and mean. There's no angle. No bells and whistles. Nothing to make blogger/critic/hype machine-types to perk up their ears and say 'Oh, isn't that interesting!' So what makes ECSR better than the rest? It's that's indefinable quality called... I don't know... talent?"

I'm perhaps a bit closer to figuring what it is that makes ECSR so much better than most of their garage punk brethren. I have some theories, at least. Maybe it's because they're equally adept at the slow burn and the stomper. Maybe it's because they know how to ride a groove. Maybe it's the fact that their guitars are a treble-y clang rather than a wall of fuzz, which allows the other instruments room to breathe. Maybe it's their keen sense of melody.

Well, whatever it is, the conclusion is that this is one of the finer rock music outfits around right now. If you're looking elsewhere for THE album to pick up this week, you're a real chump.- Paul Bruno, The Unblinking Ear

Biography

Formed: 2003 in Ormond, Victoria, Australia

Genre: Alternative

Years Active: '00s, '10s

If you were looking for a day job that would reinforce the credibility of your garage punk band, you could hardly do better than to follow the example of Eddy Current Suppression Ring — the four members of the group met when they were working at a vinyl pressing plant in Ormond, Victoria, Australia. Inspired by hard-edged, primitive rock in the manner of the Troggs, the Pagans. and X (the Aussie band, not the California punks of the same name), Eddy Current Suppression Ring got their start...
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