Greetings From

Sporting rough edges and track inconsistences, Long Holiday’s Greetings From… wears the undulating pitfalls and peaks of a debut release, albeit with a redemptive finish.

Over the course of the 12-track album, a brash ‘Pretty In Pink’ punk adolescence matures into a nuanced interplay of aural textures, ironic lyricism and layered nineties alternative-rock homage.

Where the tasteless repetitive vitriolic spouting of “She Ain’t Dead (But You Are)” progresses to interesting rockabilly changes and blues turnarounds with kitschy drum punctuation in “Hit Machine”. The band graduating into its sound in highly evolved avant-garde surf-guitar form of “Salt”.

Providing an interesting (dare I say the word) ‘feminist’ perspective, the Melbournian trio apply a loosely inspired Riot Grrl take to their sound.

From the cheeky deconstruction of texts in titles such as “Garden Of Evil”, which channels an archetypal Pearl Jam song structure, through to the concluding close-circuited meta-song “Your World”, Long Holiday rarely leave a grungy stone unturned.

Despite a slight reductive quality underlining their pop sensibility, the likes of “Army Of One” with its cloak and dagger play with cliché and cruisy chord progressions somewhat forgives any amateurish troughs present in Greetings From…

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