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Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – Hope Downs review

June 15, 2018

Brooding native Melbournians, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s low rumbling, but perpetually quickening rise to repute has culminated in one of the most exciting, beautiful debuts albums to be launched this year.

The electrical energy that began building in the clouds since their first EP broke a few years back sparked tracks being picked up by press and mainstream radio worldwide, a studding of summer festival spots, and, now, finally, the thunderclap of a full-length release and a global headline tour, the AU dates having just been announced to begin in September.

The album begins with a confident, self-assuredness that speaks merit to just how far the band have come, both lyrically, and compositionally speaking since their last release. Standout phrases on the single ‘An Air Conditioned Man’, like ‘Back past the wall/where you first kissed her’ sound positively Dylanesque, but are set across a heavy curtained backdrop of serious bass and interplaying lead guitars.

Building gravitas through sheer, awesome, sky-filing soundscapes on ‘Bellarine’, then taking the mood-lights down through the relaxed storytelling of ‘Cappucino’, upping the ante again on last track, and new single, ‘The Hammer’, the pace of the album, and ergo, strength of each song as stand-alone enjoyable pieces of music separate from the collective, is executed artfully. Indeed, the ups, the downs, and the sidewayses, the bumps and thuds that knit the whole thing together could be likened to a rolling storm’s crescendos and lulls.

Hope Downs was everything we actually could have hoped for for RBCF’s first album and we eagerly await more live shows, and more music, from one of the most hard-hitting contemporary rock bands on the scene.

Hope Downs is out 15 June.