Hobo Rocket is the fifth LP from Perth, Australia based five-piece Pond. Made up of Nick Allbrook, Jay Watson, Cam Avery, Joseph Ryan and Jamie Terry, the band set out to make a record that captures a portion of rock music's great, decadent history through a personal lens. Hobo Rocket is brief and dark. It captures the live intensity the band cultivated during their tour across a large swath of the world around the release of 2012's Beard, Wives, Denim. “This album is supposed to represent that thrill that I get watching Youtubes from [the Beard Wives Denim] era”, says Watson. “That thrill that we never had on record. This was our attempt to make it tuneful, not just yelling and throwing each other around”.
Hobo Rocket is a diverse album: from the groggy spoken word of the title track (featuring Perth fixture Cowboy John on vocals) to the glittery psychedelia of “O Darma” to the ominous Black Sabbath stomp of “Aloneaflameaflower”. The record is, first and foremost, a deliberately fun listen, but it's worth digging deeper to discover a conflicted, sometimes sweetly sad, raucous love letter to a genre with no shortage of awesomely weird moments.