REVIEW: Springtime—Springtime (2021)
Where Tropical Fuck Storm’s Gareth Liddiard joins forces with Dirty 3/The Hard Quartet’s Jim White, and The Neck’s Chris Abrahams to pleasing effect.
This is another one of those supergroup releases that crept stealthily under my radar (see also MIEN), suggesting the promotion wasn’t exactly extensive upon its release in 2021. Never mind, word of mouth got me there in the end, and HERE WE ARE.
If you didn’t know better, you would have trouble differentiating this from other Gareth Liddiard projects. His voice and his guitar are so recognisable, and the song styles also very close to his, his presence dominates. That’s alright by me, because a) the songs are uniformly cinematic and engaging b) I like most of his work in any case.
That’s not to say that Chris Abraham’s piano flourishes don’t bring a different drama and texture (case in point: The awesome Killing of a Village Idiot with its ominous rumblings), but the result is very much The Gareth Show with immensely well regarded guests (TFS’s Fiona Kitschin also adds backing vocals on Jeanie in a Bottle).
It’s a little smoother than some of Liddiard’s punkier work, with a little less splittle-flecked murderous intent, but I guess that’s the point. Bottom line, Tropical Fuck Storm fans that gave it a miss/missed it entirely would be well advised to pick it up.
