The Moles - Composition Book LP

The Moles’ early material captures a kind of glittering, jangly vision of Sydney in the 1980s that, to be frank, they never quite recaptured after moving overseas in the early 1990s (albeit this is coming from a deep-seated personal bias that believes that Sydney is the best city in the world and that any turn towards shoe gaze should be considered a crime worthy of some sort of punishment).

Their latest, Composition Book, sees them landing on Robert Pollard’s Splendid Research imprint with the head honcho chiming in on the hype sticker calling it their best (has Pollard heard that first LP???). While I wouldn’t go that far, there’s a welcome return to a ramshackle jangle winding its way around songs that have a certain innocence and directness to them (as though as you age there’s no time for poetic obfuscation, you just gotta get the idea across) that makes me think of the post-Lindy and Amanda Go-Betweens (if you can still call that era of the band by that name and without the eye-watering price tag of that boxset…), The Cannanes’ Howling At All Hours or The Bats (whose ‘Tragedy’ is covered here and is a highlight I reckon!)

-Mitch