★★★☆
Douglas Mawson’s 1912 Antarctic expedition is an enthralling and harrowing story of human tragedy and endurance.
With the explorers’ bodies suffering the effects of malnutrition, one of Mawson’s party went mad, and another fell to his death in a crevice. Mawson himself narrowly escaped the same fate.
What does that have to do with Marilyn Rose and The Thorns’ album, Antarctica? Well, not a lot, other than Mawson’s Antarctica trip is a good story, and Antarctica is a good album. The adventure starts with a Killing Joke rumble and continues with a faithful cover of The Scientists’ ‘Set It On Fire’. ‘Fallen Angel’ is dark and intense – noir for the Dirty Three generation – and ‘Dead Radio’, originally performed by Birthday Party alum Rowland S. Howard, and ‘Wild Horse Plain’ are two sides of a dirt highway set somewhere between Neil Young and Siouxsie Sioux.
‘Silver City Highway’ is a taste of Morricone, while ‘Spiderwoman’ is the Divinyls on a quest to find their inner Sabbath.
Douglas Mawson would’ve appreciated those musings, as he stared across the vast Antarctic landscape waiting for his adventure to end.
Antarcticaby Marilyn Rose And The Thorns is released independently and available throughBandcamp.
