Bad Vibrations Records (label)
07 October 2024 (released)
3 h
Brisbane, Australia quintet Nice Biscuit re-emerge with second album ‘SOS’ out on Bad Vibrations (UK) and Greenway Records/Reverberation Appreciation Society (US). This is far from a cry for assistance though, instead of arm-waving pleas of desperation and messages in bottles, these are nine communiques ranging from the kinetic to the poetic.
The five (three boys: Nick Cavendish, Jess Ferronato, Kurt Melvin and two girls: Billie Star and Grace Cuell) have created a collection where easy-cheesy listening meets panoramic pop-psych with Cuell and Star trading off choral histories and cascading auroral mysteries in the vein of original bedroom auteur Joe Meek’s interstellar transmissions. The album is mixed by Mildlife’s Jim Rindfleish, another group committed to creating noisescapes of hushed irreverence and soothing ambience.
Opening with ‘The Star’ we are immediately immersed within a woozy, hazy, lazy fantasia that reminds of Stereolab’s languid exotica and also 1970s library music’s bloops and bleeps. These sounds once heralded a technology-assisted bright horizon, that hasn’t worked out due to human beings being, well, inhuman beings, yet heard here the effect is a calming, balming flood of blood to the head, heart and hands’-ends.
The nu-funk of ‘Love that takes you up’ mixes a Gerry Anderson theme-choon with a sci-fi song of the sirens, cooing and wooing love from the blocks.
The titular track is a spine-tingling jingling , the hypnotising climax a pins and needles ascent to a world away from manipulated fear and misery.
‘Rain’ falls down, showering the listener with a propulsive motorik hypnotik groove, a seven-minute dance-trance amongst the poplets. As chaos reigns inside and on screens proffering a filtered reality on the world outside, seize the power of now and let life’s wonderments wash over and cleanse.
‘Discomfort’ and ‘Fade Out’ are power-pop perfection: picture a Buzzcockian drive with The Cars along a highway to hello, I’m home, where the heart is.
The closing track ‘Breathe’ sums up the sonic self-help guidelines within these nine meditative mantras. A collection that ranges from wig-outs to yogic retreating to inhalations and exhalations of bliss-filled visions that aim to erode any spiritual emptiness.
