Reviews

The Goon Sax
Up To Anything

(Chapter)

8/10

I was in a band when I was a teenager. We wrote terrible music with abstract lyrics about our profound thoughts on the world, which were nothing particularly interesting to begin with. We tried to be something we weren’t, and that’s why we sucked. Australian trio The Goon Sax sound like teenagers. Their songs are awkward, with lanky hair and terrible posture. ‘Up To Anything’ is an album with zits. The production is rough, and songs like ‘Sometimes Accidentally’ and ‘Telephone’ are riddled with insecurity – “I never feel very comfortable with my body.”

Meanwhile, ‘Home Haircuts’ doesn’t just stand as a depressingly relatable parable for anyone of a certain age, but a manifesto for the kind of band The Goon Sax want to be: “I show them a picture of Roger McGuinn, Edwyn Collins, John Lennon, David Byrne – it seems I just can’t win.” How wrong they are. ‘Up To Anything’ is some of the most brilliantly, brutally adolescent pop music to emerge in a very long time. I hope they never grow up.