Bleak Squad is the most well-known Melbourne band no one’s heard of.
If you’re looking for a review of their debut album Strange Love, click here!
They are a new Melbourne four-piece comprised of Australian art-rock royalty – co-authors of some of the most critically-acclaimed music of the last 40 years. Featuring Mick Turner (Dirty Three, Mess Esque), Mick Harvey (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey, The Birthday Party), Adalita (Magic Dirt) and Marty Brown (Art of Fighting), the unlikely quartet unite for the first time on Bleak Squad’s brooding, noir-rock debut LP, Strange Love due to be released on August 22nd.
As a taster to their new LP, first single Lost my Head came out this week. Fans signed up to the mailing list also get a sneak peak of another album track Everything Must Change.
I’ve followed most of the members in their other projects, and what translates into Bleak Squad most clearly for me in Lost My Head is their acute sense of rhythm and ability to use this to underpin a song. The elegant simplicity of choosing a riff, a motif almost, and building an entire song around that, with the musical confidence to know it’ll work.
Disclaimer: I usually hate “supergroups”. They’re so often the musical equivalent of the overly microwaved remnants of a sad, pre-payday dinner, with a side of overblown ego which means they never truly work. But I didn’t hear any of that here.
“I think the name Bleak Squad speaks to both this loose collection of misfits,” says Adalita of the concoction, “and the noirish mood of our music.” And I think this short quote highlights a lot about why this project seems poised to work. They approach it as a collective and have a clear vision for the type of music they want to create, and ultimately it’s an opportunity for them to do just that – play more and create more.
Their 9 track LP, Strange Love is out August 22nd on Poison City Records.
Listen to the single here.
Order the LP here or here (if you’re in the UK/EU).
Find out more about Bleak Squad here.