You’d think after the mammoth past couple of months Perth outfit Pond have had touring, they might take a few steps back and recover. But there’s no rest for the wicked with the outfit dropping an interesting cover in support of their favourite AFL team, the Fremantle Dockers.
In a decidedly interesting week for cover songs, the psych gods have delivered a tripped out, wailing cover of the Fremantle Dockers Club Song, complete with the soft chant of lines “Freo way to go/Hit ‘em real hard send ‘em down below” alongside the band’s signature whammy pedal-induced guitar haze.
The Western Australian outfit can seemingly do no wrong with the fun take on the club chant that has one Soundcloud commenter lamenting that they “never saw this angle” of the song before.
Pond will be dropping their new record, Hobo Rocket, in the coming months, with lead single ‘Giant Tortoise’ already garnering stellar praise from critics and fans alike.
Speaking with Tone Deaf in January, keyboardist Jay Watson (also drummer for sister act Tame Impala) confirmed that Pond’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed Beard Wives Denim, will be a “full on crazy fiend rock and roll album.”
“We were going to do a really nice, beautiful orchestrated album, but we figured we might as well capture the live band as we’ve been touring… So that’s what Hobo Rocket is, the full on, manic acid rock [album],” Watson revealed.
The Dockers fans have been seemingly quiet since the release of ‘Giant Tortoise’ even amidst news that every member of the band will be releasing solo material this year. Watson noted the group’s eagerness to release new material soon, revealing “We’re all just recording stuff, Pond records, we’ve done one and we’re doing another one, and solo records and stuff.”
…complete with the soft chant of lines “Freo way to go/Hit ‘em real hard send ‘em down below”
Two parts of the Pond and Tame Impala family have also recently signed to Australian music talent agency Artist Voice as they open premises in Melbourne, with new the side project for Nick Allbrook and Cam Avery, simply called Allbrook/Avery, joining Angus & Julia Stone, Neil Finn, Ladyhawke, and Ta-Ku as new signees to Artist Voice.
The agency’s international roster grows as well as it now represents Glasgwegian buzz band Chvrches, who have recently released a rough cover of the theme song to HBO’s popular series Game of Thrones.
The three-piece have been touted by British tastemakers like NME and the BBC off the back of their singles ‘Lies’ and ‘The Mother We Share’, plus their recently released Recover EP, as well as a stunning performance at Austin’s SXSW conference.
Chvrches have put their synth-laden spin on the fantasy program’s (long) theme tune in a cute, albeit awesome cover which seems strangely gloomy and perfect for a Scottish winter (similar to that of the long winters in Westeros). The release of the homemade video is timed perfectly with the recent third season premiere of Game of Thrones on the American network last week.
Chvrches aren’t the only group to have been swept up in the fantasy novel turned phenomenon that is Game of Thrones, with Brooklyn outfit The National contributing a recent addition to the soundtrack for the successful HBO TV series in ‘The Rains of Castamere’, alongside working on their “immediate and visceral” sixth studio album Trouble Will Find Me.
Pub scene buddies The Hold Steady have also contributed to the third season’s playlist with a boozy rendition of ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair,’ a track that showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss told Rolling Stone was “one of the most popular songs in Westeros, beloved by nobles and commoners alike, sung at taverns and feasts,” a seemingly perfect track for the hard and fast rockers.
