The Fauves - When Good Times Go Good

Author

Uri Moliné

Published

Friday 9th January

The lads from Mornington Peninsula have teamed up once more with long time friend and producer Wayne Connolly (Josh Pyke, Sarah Blasko, Dallas Crane) as well as Midnight Oil’s own Jim Moginie for their ninth studio album.

The album opens with the shimmering Underwhelmed, in which we hear Andrew Cox’s resigned disappointment with the new government and their lack of substance: “All the years of waiting / dreaming of the day / somehow when it came / it was underwhelming”. Another of the things that sets this album apart from their previous efforts is that the other singer-songwriter-guitarist in the band, Phil “The Doctor” Leonard, gets to share the spotlight with Cox way more than before (with 5 songs instead of the usual 2-3), enriching and expanding their more pop and laidback side. Still, there’s room for some classic Fauves rocking like Fight Me, I’m 40, which fires some great lines at up and coming bands: “When I was your age I had a record deal / Send me a text let me know how you feel”.

This is The Fauves at their most mature, a word that in the music World often means “boring as fuck and lacking any new ideas anymore” especially if a band has been together for 21 years like them but here it simply means that they slow down the tempo favouring pop over rock and dropping the humour in their lyrics for a more straightforward approach but without losing their bite.