When listening to young Running Gun Sound’s Friends, it is almost too easy to ruthlessly deduce the blatant reduction of eighties Brit-pop which characterizes the entire 35 minutes of their album.
From pastel aesthetics to a fraught association with Neo-Romanticism (which is thankfully quashed by pastiche post-punk tightness) this band of Brisbanites wallow fashionably in a decade, which has been unfortunately, for them, logged away for good.
Their first single “Just You See”, unpleasantly prints plastered-cocaine faces on the mind of the listener while the incessant dinky treble tone of the guitar gnaws on the back of the brain.
The alternating vocals of a British-cum-Australian baritone and a nasal meandering whine pop up sporadically (yes, like “Clueless” Cher’s interpretation of the word) throughout the record. The latter voice, which is almost self-indulgent in its straying, features in the newly released single “Best of It All”.
Despite the ominous ‘Attack of the Nasel Drawl’ in Running Gun Sound’s second single, the pumping out of echoing chords in “Best of It All” gives the record a necessary boost, punching it through to the end, to finally ride out nicely.
However, the likes of “Omar” and “What!” again represent the nauseating inertia of the album’s nostalgia.
Where in “Omar”, the keys simultaneously spell out the theme of Space Invaders whilst conjuring a sepia-visioned version of high school reminiscent of a John Hughes film.
Despite any backward-looking inclinations, “Fight Time Winner” serves as a rollicking redemption on the back of bluesy jangle-fuzzed guitar. Where texture and layered-contrast is produced in a collaborative effort of Spaghetti-Western clarity.
With a penchant for story telling defining the arc of Friends, an analogy seems fitting in summarizing Running Gun Sound.
Interchangeably endearing and maddening, listening to them can be likened to a night of babysitting the neighbour’s kids. At first it’s all kicks and giggles. However, after enduring the bedtime tantrums and candied vomit sprayed along the kitchen wall, a voice of reason sensibly suggests: maybe I’ll come back and give these kids a go in a few years time.
