Tropical Fuck Storm : Inflatable Graveyard
Formed in 2017, Australian post-punks Tropical Fuck Storm garnered early acclaim for their first two albums, A Laughing Death in Meatspace and Braindrops, along with a reputation for performing noisy and energetic live shows even more quickly. Their three studio albums have been both commercially and critically successful in their homeland, with the latter two both cracking the top ten there. Yet despite the band’s reputation for being abrasive, I’ve always found their recordings to be a little on the restrained side, frequently teasing elements of noise before yanking them away from the listener’s ears (a problem, incidentally, I always had with Tropical Fuck Storm’s contemporaries, Protomartyr, before their more intense Ultimate Success Today finally converted me into a fan). Their debut live album, then, represents the ideal opportunity for casual admirers of the band to get a taste of their live performances.
The sonic differences between Tropical Fuck Storm as a studio band and Tropical Fuck Storm as a live band are appreciable from Inflatable Graveyard’s outset. Gareth Liddiard and Erica Dunn’s guitars on the first three songs, “Braindrops,” “Chameleon Paint” and “Antimatter Animals,” sound a lot rougher and fuzzier than they did on the songs’ studio versions. This rougher sound ends up making the songs all the more satisfying. The riffing during the intro to “Chameleon Paint” is particularly effective, and the mellifluousness of Dunn and bassist Fiona Kitschin’s backing vocals on “Braindrops” complements the hoarseness of Liddiard’s Nick Cave-esque bark. After three discordant post-punk songs, the Psychedelic Furs-meets-Cocteau Twins dream pop of “New Romeo Agent” feels like a melancholic, melodic palate-cleanser.
The version of “You Let My Tyres Down” on Inflatable Graveyard enhances both the noisy and the melodic qualities of the original, to the extent that it now sounds pleasingly like a Fleetwood Mac song being played using fuzz pedals. The album isn’t quite all killer and no filler, though. The guitar riffing on “Rubber Bullies” in places gets looser and more undisciplined than feels necessary. However, it resumes its prior power and focus on main set closer “Paradise” and encore opener “Two Afternoons.” A cover version of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” might seem unsuited to a band like Tropical Fuck Storm’s playing style, as well as being an odd song on which to close a live show, but you can get a sense from the recording of it on Inflatable Graveyard that the band were all having a good time, and it would seem that the crowd at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall enjoyed it.
Inflatable Graveyard serves as an accessible and enjoyable introduction to the Tropical Fuck Storm live experience. The album’s sound might not be as consistently tight as it could be, but for the vast majority of its 72-minute running time, the band’s playing has a raucous, unrestrained quality to it that provides an even better representation of their music than their studio albums.
Label: Three Lobed
Year: 2024
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