May 16, 2022 by A.S. Van Dorston

Melbourne’s jangle heroes kick off the summer with a fridge stocked full of chilled guitar sounds.

Rolling Blackout Coastal Fever’s third official full-length kicks off with the minute long synth ditty, “Pearl Like You,” that recalls the intro to Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight.” I would have felt some dread that yet another great guitar band fell down into the great synth sinkhole, had I not already heard several singles. While there are synths snaking throughout the album, they don’t interfere with the three guitar dream team. Nine years after they first started recording, RBCF show no signs of abandoning their strengths for the sake of fickle fashions.

Written and demoed by separate members during Australia’s strict lockdown restrictions, once they were able to gather together, they recorded and self-produced the album in the Russo family’s mud-brick house (seen on the cover photo) in the bush north of Melbourne. With two EPs and two albums under their belt, this is often a point where a band flounders, trying on new styles like awkwardly fitting outfits in an effort not to repeat themselves. If a band loves what they do and is confident in their signature sound, they can exercise patience and progress incrementally, evolving without abandoning their foundation. This is precisely what RBCF accomplished on Endless Rooms. One of their obsessions is New Order, and they could easily have gone down a Technique shaped technopop rabbit hole. Leading up to their first singles of this album, I was kind of holding my breath because I was afraid that might happen. As you can guess, I really fucking hate Technique. I do like me some synth and electropop bands, but the world is lousy with ’em. Three-guitar jangle pop bands are not so common, and it would simply be a waste to abandon that.

After my brief flirtation with a coronary event on “Pearl Like You,” we’re off with “Tidal River,” a kind of anthemic kick-off evoking Eddy Cochrane’s “Summertime Blues” with the refrain, “Ceiling’s on fire / Train’s leaving the station / It’s January We’re on vacation / Take your complaint to the United Nations / I feel my wave coming on.” But what’s this guitar sound? Sounds like they’re using The Edge’s old Korg SDD-3000 delay pedal! Okay lads, enjoy your toys and surf them riffs!

“My Echo” is a sparkling highlight, following up “Tidal River” with some fantastic ebb and flow guitar work, kicking off at 1:32 with another brief nod to The Edge, locking into a groove for while calling back to “Wither With You” with some subtle “sht sht shts” before shining the spotlight on Joe Russo’s bass playing, with the full band kicking in at 2:25, yas, yaasssss, just like dat. It may not jump out at you immediately in the car, but put on the headphones and you’re in for transcendence.

“Dive Deep” features several pretty rocking, soaring riffs in overdrive, while “Blue Eye Lake” and “Saw You at the Eastern Beach” are similarly loaded with overlapping hooks. Could this be their hard rock album? Not quite, there are a few tracks that are more subdued and slower paced like the title track, “Caught Low,” “Bounce Off The Bottom” and “Open Up Your Window.” Summer is still evoked, but a more melancholy, desolate vibe, with the distant hum of air conditioners and pool filters. For a long time, I favored the scruffy exuberance of Talk Tight (2016) and even early tracks like 2013’s “Waking Up, Dirt River” over the albums. But the more sophisticated arrangements and harmonies are drawing me in to the new songs more than ever.

The band shies away from overt political statements, but they don’t hide their opinions, instead, making pointed observations on the climate crisis, stolen lands, and perhaps most poignantly on album closer “Bounce Of The Bottom” — “Smoke cloud/Rolling through the old city… Looking for the filter/Laughing at the video/One nation under the blanket.”

There’s no better album to kick off the summer to my ears than Endless Rooms, with perhaps Warpaint’s Radiate Like This for the cooldown at dusk. Ignore at the peril of your guitar-starved rock ‘n’ roll soul.