Album Review: Underground Lovers - Weekend

Seminal '90s Australian band Underground Lovers are back with their seventh album, Weekend. Their first original release in 14 years, this album marks the reconvening of the original Undies line-up, with vocalist Phillipa Nihill returning to the fold and adding depth to the incredible musical partnership of founders Vincent Giarrusso and guitarist Glen Barrie. An intelligent mix of pop, rock and electronica, this album is a bloody marvellous return to form.

Opening with the atmospheric Spaces, Nihill's hypnotic and raspy vocals gently bring you into the album, before Giarrusso opens things up with the swaggering and chugging Can For Now. An album of many paces, Weekend shifts gears from frenetic in Au Pair to drowsy in Dream To Me, but the change never feels jarring.

Tinged with '80s and '90s musical references, such as the New Order-esque Signs Of Weakness, the Undies pay direct homage to Australian counterparts Go-Betweens in the techno pop track, Riding: “We were at a party! Rob and Grant were there!/At the Cattle and Cane disco.”

But this album is more than mere mimicry. It is introspective and self-deprecating without being a total downer. Haunting one moment with In Silhouette and kraut rock arse-kicking the next in The Lie That Sets You Free, Weekend is a perfect landscape of electronic bleeps, distorted guitar and quietly desperate vocals. With long-time collaborators Wayne Connolly and Tim Whitten at the recording helm, Underground Lovers have come back with one of the best Australian releases so far this year.