Brindle: Story Time.

Brindle launch Catch at The Healer on Saturday.

For their follow-up to their Stories EP, local four-piece Brindle have rewritten their own rulebook somewhat. It’s still Brindle, make no mistake, but on their brand-spanking new EP Catch, the direction is certainly harder, edgier and louder.

“Stories was a bit electric in parts, but this CD really represents what we were working towards,” says singer Deb over a beer. “We were after a big sound, which veers from quite melodic, delicate-sounding music to this huge wall of sound. It’s not soft bit/loud bit rock, but there’s certainly more of a range in sound with these songs.”

Deb agrees with me that Catch manages to represent the different elements of Brindle quite impressively over the space of just three songs. Opening lead track Catch is a big, gutsy verse/chorus rock song, very electric, very melodic, very intense, very Brindle and at the same time the most accessible three-or-so-minutes of their career thus far. It’s followed by the more challenging but no less intriguing Candles, which veers from brooding ballad to propulsive, near-psychedelic rock. It’s all capped off by Mine, a brief stripped-back number, just Deb and a guitar.

“We recorded at Psi-Fi Studios, which was a great place to record and it was also the first time we used an outside producer (Jeff Lovejoy did the honours),” says Deb. “It was a really new experience for us, working with someone else who brought different ideas along. We might have rehearsed a song to death and had our own idea on the way it should sound, but Jeff would make these suggestions and we would find the song going off in a completely different direction.”

It was an experience the whole band clearly treasures, and the result is remarkably assured and powerful. The Catch EP also showcases more varied moods in Deb’s voice, which remains an expressive instrument, but reveals a quieter, more contemplative side on these three songs.

“It’s all part of my changes and development as a vocalist,” Deb explains. “It’s nice to just pull back and show a bit more restraint, because I used to belt everything out.”

2002 will include some interstate gigs for Brindle, plus hopes for a new album before the year’s out.

“Yeah, we’d really like to get an album out.” Deb enthuses. “We’d want it to combine accessibility with a dark side – because we do like our dark side!”