by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Melbourne’s Vintage Crop are among the best of Australia’s brilliant punk bands (and there sure are a lot of them), darting between their early garage punk days and a jagged post-punk artiness. Their lyrics often come with a sarcastic bite toward complacent life. Following last year’s excellent Company Man EP, the quartet return after a year spent touring with their third full length, the acerbic and raw, Serve To Serve Again, due out August 7th via the perfect pairing of Upset The Rhythm and Anti Fade Records. We previously featured the record’s first single “Gridlock,” and today we’re thrilled to present the premiere of their latest, “The North.”
Capturing the spirit of “the miserable fucking North,” Vintage Crop open with a skeletal riff that sticks like glue, forever engrained into the song. It’s repetitive and circular progression only adds to the strength of the song, with the rhythm put in place to support the fractured guitar line, and the nearly spoken vocal melody. The band’s own Jack Cherry said “the lyrics struck me on my birthday in 2019, we were in Europe on tour and we had played 28 shows in the past 30 days.” It’s safe to say the band were feeling a bit tired and perhaps… a bit cold. Whether “The North” refers to the entire Northern hemisphere or not is irrelevant. If those shoe fits… you’ll know it.