Food Court have been on our radar for a fair while now. The band have enjoyed a swift rise to the helm of Australian garage rock royalty in 2015 with two singles, the ridiculously catchy nuggets 14 Years Young and On The River, garnering them much deserved widespread attention and a couple of sneaky support slots with the likes of Courtney Barnett and The Delta Riggs. They know their way around a pop track, with hooks so contagious they make Ebola seem like a common cold, and For The Morning, their latest offering, is no exception.
Garage rock is ubiquitous in Australian music. The more and more bands that take recording into their own hands, the more we see emerging under the blanket of ‘garage’. It’s less of a genre now and more of an overarching inclination that bands gravitate towards. Food Court are the pick of the crop when it comes to Aussie garage rock bands, and For The Morning sees the band maintaining that legacy with more fervor than ever before.
For The Morning sees Food Court maintain their place at the helm of Aussie garage rock royalty, proving once again they can navigate a rock track like drunken guitar wielding kings.
Their previous singles were blistering rock tracks, driven by a pop heart. They were upbeat and bouncy, pierced with rays of sun and caked with salt, and in some ways, kind of adolescent. For The Morning is more like a drunken uncle. It smacks you in the face after a brief build up with singer Cristian Campano slurring his way over a bed of buried fuzz guitars.
He lets the melody do the talking, incoherently snaking his way over a relentlessly paced rhythm section. It’s got a pub rock heart, beer-soaked and somewhat carefree, but also slightly melancholy. There are tinges of what The Living End used to do so well, circa 1998 minus the rockabilly backbone.
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Around the one minute thirty mark (the track clocks in at a cool two minutes thirty) everything drops away save for a glorious lone guitar, shredding away with more steeze than Chris Cheney could ever muster, before everything rolls back in like a runaway freight train, all football chants and apocalyptic cymbals.
For The Morning sees the band once again working with Straight Arrows mastermind Owen Penglis who undoubtedly contributes to the track’s verve. He gives it guts, nothing over the top, nothing too lo-fi, just punchy guitars, rackety drums, meaty bass and commanding (if slightly inebriated) vocals. The first taste of the bands forthcoming debut record, For The Morning sees the band maintain their post as kings of Aussie garage rock, now lets see if they can back it up.
