3/5 stars
The late Tom Hafey was adamant that Aussie Rules football was, at its beating heart, a simple game: get ball, kick ball, chase ball. It’s doubtful Hafey paid as much attention to the choice between style and simplicity in rock’n’roll; if he had, he’d probably reckon Thee Gold Blooms have got the balance just right.
Thee Gold Blooms’ quest isn’t to change the world, and what’s wrong with that? The songs on the band’s debut album are the ubiquitous fare of adolescence – romantic attraction, sexual tension, unrequited love and the emotional weight of indecision. Musically, Thee Gold Blooms have found themselves half a dozen chords and, in the greatest rock’n’roll tradition, that’s all that matters.
Listen closely, and you can hear The Everly Brothers in a Tacoma garage in ‘Katie-Sue’; ‘Natalie’is the best song The Black Lips haven’t recorded. ‘Do You Really Want Me’ is The Beatles via Painters and Dockers’ ‘Nude School’, and ‘Please Wake Me’is the end of the night, when the booze has run drum, your girl has run off with that dickwit from the local footy team and life is a festering pile of shit.
But you’ve still got rock’n’roll, so that’s good enough – and if you’ve got Thee Gold Blooms on the stereo, things are looking on the up.
