ALBUM REVIEW: FLICKERTAIL Call You To “Hurry Up And Wait”

Imagine if Status Quo, Thin Lizzy and, like, AC/DC and Cheap Trick put on their tightest denim jackets, assorted flamboyant headwear and…a kilt and wrote a bunch of songs about the redemptive powers of rock’n’roll and the beer-stained streets of Dublin and Sydney. That’s exactly what we’ve got on our hands here with FLICKERTAIL

I don’t know how a bunch of skinny young Irish-Australian longhairs figured all this out, but they clearly graduated from Rock’n’ Roll High School with honours. The music they play is spectacularly confident, a steely-eyed melange of ‘78 punk, glittering Glam, clattering Garage Rock and moonshine sipping Southern Rock with plenty of tambourine-shaking.

Opener ‘Let There Be Love owes accolades to Akka Dakka while ‘Talk’ is a mashup of the more bashful side of late-era Beatles with the twin-twanged riff-o-rollicking leads of Led Zeppelin. The standout track on this feisty five-tracker is the Irish-as-Guiness ‘Green Eyed Girl’, a nod to Van Morrison with an ode to Thin Lizzy, a lamenting limerick of long-lost lady love, the ghost of Phil Lynott looms large here.

Hurry Up And Wait is chock full of head-boppers and floor-shakers, gushing buckets of testosterone whilst simultaneously oozing oxytocin, remarkably poppy in parts these rockers aren’t afraid to reveal their sensitive side, good old Brit hard rock with the full-tilt thunderboogie of say T-Rex or Slade.

If it weren’t for the impeccable production it would almost seem impossible that this wasn’t made in 1978. If this doesn’t send you dancing off to the record store and falling in love with Saturday nights and shiny black Chelsea boots, nothing will, and you should probably just give up on rock’n’roll completely. Worth it for the tambourine-shaking alone really. Like the native aussie bird the band is named after, this will likely fly off shelves.

Review by Harley Gough