Lower Plenty - Life/Thrills LP

While Lower Plenty’s Hard Rubbish, has rightfully garnered something of a cult following in the almost decade and a half since its release, the follow up, Life/Thrills, deserves just as much love (in my opinion!).

The slice of life songwriting largely remains here while the recording here seems to take a step from kitchen-sink clatter towards something a little slicker but still homely – perhaps the lounge room? Yet the songs here are more sprawling and ambitious than before, with the likes of the title track and ‘On The Beach’ winding along and weaving together Jensen Thjung (Deaf Wish) and Al Montfort’s (Dick Diver, Total Control, Straightjacket Nation, UV Race, etc) guitars in a kind of incredible dual guitar duel. Somewhere along the way the opening lines of ‘Go Down’ (“Go down / like Bon Scott said”) imprinted itself on my brain; a perfect example of the kind of casual, throwaway but slightly strange and funny approach the band takes to singing about the everyday. – Mitch