REVIEW: Dirty Beaches - Badlands

Dirty Beaches
Badlands
.5 (out of 5)

For those of us still in the Southern Hemisphere, I think it’s pretty safe to say that winter has finally made it. Most of us have swapped the surf for snow (although I managed to slot in both over the weekend – the water turned my brain into ice cream!) and surf-related music has been rightly shelved until the ocean warms up a little bit. Thankfully Dirty Beaches is less Beach Boys and more Elvis. It’s all in the record’s title – Badlands: a little shotgun shack on the hill where all kinds of nasty shit goes down. The album is what I could imagine Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas sounding like in audio format.

The record’s first track, ‘Speedway King’ is a pouty journey knee-shaking its way across the desert; the start of 27 minute ride which calls up the American Mid-West through Alex Zhang Hungtai’s muffled warble.

In fact, Badlands production aesthetic reminds me of a particular scene in Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? – the film where George Clooney sings that unforgettable rendition of ‘Man of Constant Sorrow’. The scene has a caricature of god-like bluesman Robert Johnson singing into a microphone in the middle of nowhere, and by happenstance, creates rock and roll. I think the image is fitting, as Hungtai’s work here pays direct homage to the original creators of the genre.

It’s simple music, which is probably why it is so effective. I can’t actually make out what is being sung most of the time – but I’ve decided not to check the lyric sheets and let the music speak for itself. Mental images of car races, ice cream parlours, escaped convicts, romantic interludes on Lover’s Lane, and hair wax take over when the words are completely indecipherable. Badlands is a melee that needs you to give it a lover’s chance.

Your patience will be richly rewarded.

Dirty Beaches - Badlands

By Theo Sangster.