Red Sails in the Sunset
Diesel and Dust
Earth and Sun and Moon
Midnight Oil�s second album and the first one of theirs I got my hands on. See I saw concert footage of 7 foot freak of nature/lead singer/politician (elected mind you, crazy Aussies) Peter Garrett spazzing all over the stage I had to check these guys out. Since most of their stuff is out of print and hard to find, I searched hard for something and this was the one I found, and only at $7.99, the right price I should say. Here they are still in their hard rock phase with of course a mixture of their political activism. So it�s pretty cool.
Crashing guitars kick off the environmental rocker �Cold Cold Change.� There is a neat repeated bass line running through the verses that picks up the tempo. The riffs during the break sections are cool and this song features a nice guitar solo. Really all one can ask for in a rock song. �Bus to Bondi� is a weird one with Australian lyrics I am too lazy to figure. Featuring what has been referred to as a ska breakdown in the chorus, I prefer to just call it a kick ass breakdown, with sweet piano banging underneath it all. Dig the cool elastic vocals as well. �Naked Flame� is I suppose a ballad with more Dylanesque lyrics, especially the part about the cat. When the song kicks into its soft yet somehow hard chorus of the �naaaaked flaaaame� it achieves a level of overcast surreal coolness. That and that crunchy guitar riff. �Back on the Borderline� has a catchy chorus and that�s about it. �Koala Sprint� is the sort of long form bizarre song the Oils would do more and more of through out their career. They don�t quite pull it off here as well as they would in the future, but that spoken beginning is pretty scary and all of the diverse ideas do make it a cool listen.
�No Reaction� is another cool anthemic rocker with its chorus adding crunchy extra fist pumping strength to it. The chiming guitar throughout is neato as well. Hey harmonica! �Stand in Line� is more political activism for the Oils and exhibits some cool falling and rising riffs. Sort of funky as well. Aussie funk anyways. �Profiteers� just sort of exists, some of the abstractness of the song is cool, as is the guitar interplay, but eh, not feeling it. Sadly �Is It Now?� is pretty much more of the same: cool guitar playing but more been there done that, only being saved at the very end with Garrett screaming the title quickly and in a hilarious fashion. Yeah that�s a short paragraph for side B, but really there isn�t much to say about it besides that it just consists of politically charged competent songs. Well I guess that�s Midnight Oil for you.
Final Comment: Yeah sure. It really is a fun listen, and at its cheap price well worth it.
Score: ***
Look at that beautiful bald man. To the Homepage
