Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Review: Immigrant Union "Anyway"


What the heck do they put in the water in Australia that produces such exquisite pop bands? Immigrant Union hail from Melbourne though one of the band's two singer-songwriters is an American ex-pat, Brent DeBoer from the Dandy Warhols. DeBoer and Bob Harrow have written a terrific batch of songs on Immigrant Union's second album Anyway, the band's first since the departure of Courtney Barnett.

I won't waste any more time talking here because I want to take you straight to "I Can't Return", my favorite song on Anyway, and one of my favorite songs of 2014:
Here's "Shameless", the lead track on the CD, another sublime psych pop song:



If this reminds you of The Bats or The Chills, you would be right. And we can't get enough of that sort of stuff here at WYMA, but rarely is it done this well.

The songs on Anyway do stylistically vary and contain some nice surprises, such as the haunting album closer, the Velvets-influenced "The End Has Come" (featuring Courtney Barnett on lead vocals). And there's also this country hoe down, "War is Peace", whose fun sound belies its biting satire about America's recent military interventions:


This CD is strong from beginning to end, a true gem.

Artist web page: http://www.immigrantunion.com/
Twitter: @ImmigrantUnion
Facebook Immigrant Union

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