by Conor Lochrie (@conornoconnor)
The Melbourne punk three-piece Hideous Sun Demon believe that art can be found in everything, they want you to know. Judging by their new record Development Hell, released on April 16th via Marthouse Records (MOTH, Muma Ganoush), this includes even bodily functions. “Squitter” is, indelicately, about the time one of the band had to take a shit while going for a morning walk by the city’s Yarra River. “The brown brigade, from bowels I made, down by the lake / Oh the embarrassment, oh the harassment, oh how do I lament,” howls lead singer Vincent Buchanan-Simpson, and in his mouth - for want of a better turn of phrase - his excrement excursion sounds like a cathartic release; we’ve all been there.
These four songs were written at Flightless Records HQ (King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard) in February 2020, the band eschewing their straighter, messy punk rock for more post-punk-inspired rhythms. So the relentless guitars on “Gimmicks” and “Australia” are cleaner and crisper, almost angular at points, almost stadium-ready in the latter; retro synths are splattered throughout the track “Distractions” too. The riffs, however, are still relayed at lightning speed, never far from a frenzy. Everything is so tight on the record. It’s chaotic, certainly, but also organized and measured.
They recall Parquet Courts a lot on this EP. The gang vocals in “Squitter” bear similarity to the Brooklyn band’s wiry “Wide Awake.” When they lament the repetitious activities that we engage in to clutch at any chance for escapism on “Distractions,” the theme closely mirrors Parquet Courts’ “Content Nausea;” both are restless and uneasy at modern technology and its growing control over us.
They both share sharp songwriting too, although where Andrew Savage is notably witty and esoteric with his words - a short story writer in the making - the Sun Demons resort to wackier and juvenile comedy (this is not meant as an insult in any form). In “Gimmicks,” a critique of the current state of art and music, bowel movements make a return, Buchanan-Simpson mocking hip bands by hissing “Your whole career, a hanging fart.” The song acts as a form of self-checking, the band perhaps questioning the direction they themselves were heading once upon a time (hence the exploration of post-punk). “It’s all so empty, it really sucks,” he bellows; there’s several candidates in current punk as to who he could be referring to that immediately come to mind.
It’s the last track, “Australia,” which sees the band get serious for a moment. An almost anthemic piece - anti-anthemic? - its frenzied chorus asks the repeated questions, “What is Australia? What is the nation of Australia?” Buchanan-Simpson bemoans the state of political discord in his country: “The cabinet is full of mudslingers / Spreading fear and rousing hate” and “What’s to laugh about a culture / If that culture can’t change a date,” he decries (the country has long wrestled with changing Australia Day from 26th January, a day with terrible significance for the Indigenous Australians who call it Invasion Day instead as that was the day in 1788 that marked the arrival of the First Fleet and the ultimate colonization of Australia).
It joins a recent line of Australian punk bands turning their anger and frustration inwards at their own country, including the excellent Perth outfit Last Quokka with their aggressive 2020 track “Colony.” It also shows that Hideous Sun Demon, the puerile little cousins of Parquet Courts, are capable of singing and tirading about more vital things. Their exciting and excitable punk is refreshingly untamed and insouciant.