Downer Edn

Description

The whole five band years = a lifetime biz trope is justified by the second album from Sydneys Low Life. Arriving with an aura of anticipation, Downer Edn (read: Edition) feels like a collective document of the bands timeline since their unforgettable debut Dogging; an album which made enough of a mark on the punk landscape in 2014 to justify a reissue on Londons Alter in 2017.

Recorded over two years and mixed in 2018 by Mikey Young (Total Control / Eddy Current Suppression Ring), Downer Edn sees the core trio of Mitch Tolman, Cristian OSullivan and Greg Alfaro expand their ranks to a five piece. Dizzy Daldal and Yuta Matsumura of Oily Boys & Orion were brought in to reinforce the thick wall of guitars, freeing Tolman up as a dedicated front man for live duties. The hours of studio work have resulted in the band sounding more confident and fully realised, reaching and finding a sound that was perhaps unattainable 5 years prior. However, lurking behind the bigger vision and polished production, Downer Edn is a complex proposition and remains a dark blast of an album. Expansive and cohesive, yet shimmering and rough; something they can be proud to call a definitive statement. As far as Australian punk is concerned, Downer Edition not only shatters the boundaries applied by that descriptor, it does so with the lushest attack conceivable. Like their (admitted) influence, the enigmatic Ohio legends of obscurity, V3, seldom has the f*** word been sung (repeatedly) in such a believable and poetic manner. The visceral pounding of melodies throughout the album transforms their inspirations; desperation, neuroses, trauma, survival, hooliganism, violence, hope, rejuvenation, and their hometown of Sydneys full architectural and social scope from a realm of intangibility to the very, very tangible. In the words of Mitch, Were influenced by Sydney as a whole, whether it be the hot and muggy concrete streets of the West and South West, the glorious beaches of South Sydney, the racial tensions left over from the putrid Cronulla riots of 2006, the pompous and superficial fake tan/ bleached teeth combo suburbs of Bondi, as well as Sydneys iconography: The Harbour, the Bridge, the Opera House, Kings Cross. All the desperation embedded in and around these areas, including the eternal influx of troubled people looking to get into trouble, is our experience and main on RBB, ruminating on 92, chasing the escape on Rave Slave, and unwillingly defiant on Warrior, Downer Edition reaches past the wild ride of Dogging this truly is the album that Low Life have been threatening to make for nearly a decade. Released in conjunction with Goner Records in the USA and Cool Death in Australia. RIYL Total Control, Hank Wood & the Hammerheads, Iceage, Killing Joke and The Cosmic Psychos