Album Of The Week: Triage — Methyl Ethel
Three years after releasing their second album to high critical-acclaim, the Perth pop-pysch group are back with their third album. Here’s URY Music’s Rachel Davies with her review of the new release.
Our generation often gets a bit of flak for wanting to hark back to a pre-birth era of electronica but who can blame artists from reusing bygone concepts when so many radio stations base their theme around it. Our parents may gloat about the brilliance of their generation’s music, but they have good reason to when so much of it has stood the test of time. It is no surprise then, that Methyl Ethel decided to take this approach with Triage, promoting their version of psychedelia to a generation over-saturated with chords reminiscent of listening to un-ironic vapourwave style synth lines.
The album opens up with ‘Ruiner’, a track that incorporates solely a nostalgic patterning of synthesizer chords up until the 15-second mark when they introduce the shuffle rhythm and you finally realise that yes, this isn’t a study playlist. If it wasn’t for the polished modern production, the song could easily be mistaken for a Depeche Mode album cut, but at the same time it shouldn’t be mistaken for a hollow imitation — the song brings a distinct Methyl Ethel sound that gives it that modern spin.
The second track ‘Scream Whole’ shows another notable example of influence with that Eurythmics style lyrical flow in the outro that is really impressive. The effeminate singing voice from Jake Webb is an unexpected delight, adding a more natural treble layer to the artificiality of the synth and the thumping, staccato bass of most of the tracks on Triage.
Those tracks mainly showed the more pop side of this rock-pop sub-genre fusion, but like their other Aussie contemporaries (Pond, Tame Impala and King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard), they haven’t held back from showing the psychedelic side for a couple of the songs — see All The Elements and Real Tight. However, the band do err on the side of caution with the psychedelic element (no pun intended) when compared to the previous synth-pop tracks where they reached limits they were more willing to push and the the synth comes across as more minimal here. Despite that, the plucky guitar riffs complemented both tracks by adding consistent, optimistic grooves.
The rest of the album follows pretty much the same formula apart from the third to last track, ‘Hip Horror’. Although this is a pretty accurate description of the song (the keyboard riff is comparable to the first Chucky soundtrack), it is definitely one of the more notable songs, as it nicely juxtaposes disco with a more ominous subtext.
Overall, Triage is a brilliant introduction to contemporary Australian electronica when so much of popular music still either centres on trap exports from the US or British rock (and vice versa). To be honest, this is coming from someone who still associates Australian music with Tears For Fears, Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and AC/DC so Methyl Ethel was a great start for exploring new music and gave a refreshing perspective on why their sound should be acknowledged more by the Northern Hemisphere.
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