Eddy Current Suppression Ring
Eddy Current Suppression Ring
Rating: 3.0/5.0
Label: Goner Records
Having all met while working at a Melbourne vinyl pressing plant, the easily-Googled Eddy Current Suppression Ring started out as a goof during a company party; guitarist Mikey Young, bassist Brad Barry and drummer Danny Young kicked out some ham-fisted garage jams while Brendan Huntley ad-libbed very Australian-sounding inanities into the microphone. Voila, a band was born, then christened after an obscure machine part used in vinyl-pressing technology (a ring that suppresses eddy currents- got it?) With such a vinyl-centric backstory, it’s inevitable to connote a lengthy history of great, garage-y 45 sides with the band, and ECSR kick up a few cuts worthwhile of entering that pantheon of three chord stomp.
Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Goner’s American re-release of their 2006 Aussie debut, introduces the band’s vocabulary: swift-moving, rhythmically direct six-string mashing with Huntley ranting and raving in an unapologetic Australian dialect. As easy as it could’ve been paired with that vocal delivery, Young’s playing tends not toward the Sex Pistol’s jagged, distorted edge, but rather in the direction of the overdriven, mid-range punch of abused and overheated Fender amps. The result is not as nihilistic as songs like “Having a Hard Time” (“Having a hard time/ Dealing with this/ Dealing with that“) or “It’s All Square” (“I live inside/ Inside a world/ Inside a box“) could have been; the trashy stomp create a much more welcoming, empathic atmosphere.
As the band rages with a Stranglers-like organ bit on “Insufficient Funds,” we’re right there with Huntley, grinning along with his incredulity: “I’ve been thinking/ Just pretending/ I’ve got money/ To be spending!” Also fun is “Cool Ice Cream,” a song that starts as a lame-brain ode to frozen dessert (“Well, I ate all my veggies/ And I ate all my soup/ Now can I have/ Just one scoop“), before ECSR shift fully into Modern Lovers territory, with Huntley revealing that that scoop is actually a girl. The band slowly builds to a “Roadrunner”-like peak, as Huntley intones “I deserve my dessert.” It’s only slightly creepy, but that’s the fun. “Do My Thing,” the third quality entry into the Garage Songbook is typical, but strong, three-chord sneer, Huntley screaming throughout that he’s just “gotta do [his] thing!” Understood!
Similar to when Lou Reed said that songs having more than three chords were jazz, garage rock just doesn’t seem to be garage rock without thoroughly inessential deep cuts. “Precious Rose” treads on uneven ground; cleaner, flanged guitars wind around spoken vocals from Huntley, going nowhere. “Winter’s Warm” is a halting, subdued track whose presence is thoroughly unnecessary and disappointing following the great “Insufficient Funds.”
A record like Eddy Current Suppression Ring, though, needs its valleys for the scale of its peaks to come into full focus. But please pardon my hyperbole; this is a band for whom the metaphors of “peaks,” “valleys” or “vistas” really has no place; this is stupid, fun rock music whose artistic relevance need not be estimated any further than what I’ve already typed.
by Chris Middleman
