Fade The Hammer (mustard yellow vinyl)

From its front-cover photo of four hooded hoodlums setting a street ablaze to the incendiary anthems contained inside, Bleeding Knees Club’s new album Fade The Hammer is the sound of a band on fire. Restless and revolutionary, the record sees the Sydney-based foursome bringing the heat across eleven songs of pummelling garage-rock, nervy punk and candy-coated shoegaze.

Working with producer Lachlan Mitchell (The Vines, The Jezabels), frontman Alex Wall points out it’s the first album he’s ever made with a full band. “It’s the most fun I’ve ever had in a group”, he says. “And you know, we really are a gang of misfits – I was born in California and moved to Australia as an infant. Nick comes from the far NSW north coast, while Mikey and Gio grew up in Sydney’s rough western suburbs. But when we play together it’s like nothing else matters, and it’s us against the world”.

Making good on the promise of 2017’s “comeback” EP “Chew The Gum”, of which Rolling Stone enthused “The new line-up means new – welcome – depth, showing off not just a more well-rounded musical edge, but a captivating self-reflexivity”, the album builds on BKC’s trademark bratty punk with a bigger sound and bolder ideas.

Stepping up with a storming album to match that live reputation, Fade The Hammer is a world-class record that the band can’t wait for their fans to hear, and to take on the road across the globe. Alex says of the title, “It’s about that urge to fade out all the things hammering you down”. Mission accomplished, then.