by Chris Coplan (@CCoplan)
To make great punk rock is to be measured. I get that this ideal doesn’t always apply — Iggy Pop once sliced himself with glass and rolled around in his own blood, and he’s a goddamn legend. But all of the bands that I’ve truly loved — whether that’s Bad Religion or Drug Church — have known to toe the line between overt aggression and contemplative depth. Australia’s C.O.F.F.I.N are not one of those bands.
The band are the embodiment of a hairy shirtless guy at a party, and they opt for a big, brash sound that's like a less thoughtful IDLES or a more boozy Black Flag. Don't let that overt, exaggerated surge of testosterone convince you that they're not a proper punk band. Their latest, the eleven track Australia Stops, is an exercise in having your cake and eating it too.
Sonically speaking, though, the band are happy to embrace their sloshed roots as a true Sydney party band. There's not too much separating the snarling ferocity of "Give Me A Bite," the Motorhead-meets-Thin Lizzy assault of "Lover's Leash," and the skeezy, sweltering hooks of "Night Breaker," even as the band's overt passion fills every second of each, and creates a force that consumes so much as it engages listeners.
Even if there's some subtlety — a clear hardcore bent to "Keep It Dark," or a more methodical and unnerving twist to "Factory Man" — the core sound remains steady throughout the record. Again, it's great stuff, it just seems a little one-speed. It's not a sound for ample context, and it fosters an approach that's about physically shocking folks without a lot of deliberate followup. It's the sound of a band who wants to party, and they're going to make you do a dozen keg stands via the threat of violence (like sharp noogies over punches).
Which is a rather interesting choice given the sheer context of the album's lyrics and larger thematic goals. The album's title reportedly comes from a phrase emblazoned across the mud flaps of countless Aussie trucks. This ain't no "live free or die" — for the band at least, it "poses political questions and ideals... and synchronously shines light on the eminence of community, the healthy beating heart of art and music, the beautiful landscapes and divergent nature surroundings held dear within Australia."
All that’s not immediately clear from the lyrics per say, but there's no denying that some of this shines through in other ways. (It's worth noting, with lines like "Hissing out flat and beat/Gonna cut your split tongue out" from the title track, that the band are political but with a distinctly poetic bent.) Like, the free-wheeling spirit that informs the music's unrelenting momentum. Or, why the partying angle feels so real as this facilitator of community and connection. Even the endless snarling of singer-drummer Ben Portnoy feels like a statement in an increasingly loud and angry world. It's not so much a story but a thematic salad that plays out in some novel ways.
So what's this all really mean? Especially because punk has always been able to balance partying and politics. Heck, even Bad Religion has that unrelenting jam, "Do What You Want." It could be that C.O.F.F.I.N present this balance in a way that treats both "ideals" as separate things, juxtaposing their placement and value to engage fans in a way that never feels pedestrian. Like in the song "Faceless" — the line between punk slam poetry and massive metal jam is really vital as a means of creating contextual pockets to explore as listeners intend. That would fit with the band's notion that Australia Stops is never positive or negative but a "celebration of the things we are lucky to have, while always trying to encourage and inspire those around us to try and do better."
It's novel in that the line never needs toeing, and the band can operate as they see fit with robust passion and still allow listeners the freedom and respect to make their own decisions. Sometimes that's to dance your face off, and other times it feels like the message becomes the only focus. It feels like an inventive way to contextualize politics without forgoing them to appease those idiots who'd rather not have to grapple with them at all.
In that sense, C.O.F.F.I.N haven't so much reinvented the approach of truly vital punk but shown the world another path forward. In a world where everything feels so direct all the time, it's nice to see something truly playful. Not in that it makes drunken slam dancing easier, but rather it says something about this tendency for balance and the like.
It's become increasingly difficult to ride this line in our ever-maddening world. So perhaps C.O.F.F.I.N have given everyone, musicians and thinkers alike, a new path: do what you want with endless joy, depth, and soul, and you can perhaps have it all. Even if "all" of it is just a powerful record to make life in our dystopian mind-fuck a touch more compelling.