Twerps - Twerps

While their previous releases were charmingly ramshackle lo-fi songs about subjects such as drunkenly throwing up on your friends, Twerps recorded their eponymous debut long-player in a bona fide studio with the help of engineer Jack Farley (Beaches, St Helens). Clearly, the Melbourne quartet are getting serious.

Twerps' simple, melodic sound remains inspired by New Zealand's 1980s Flying Nun era, as well as the likes of Go-Betweens and The Feelies. Amid jangly guitars drenched in reverb, vocalist Marty Frawley has a lovely, off-kilter delivery, which is both brash and dreamy all at once as he delivers lyrics often based around the antagonistic aspects of relationships. On Anything New, he laments, “I don't wanna be anyone new/I just wanna get away from today/You give me the shits and you bore me to tears.”

Elsewhere, guitarist Julia McFarlane takes a rare vocal turn on This Guy while a bunch of musical mates offer their voices at various points. Members of Super Wild Horses harmonise on Bring Me Down, while Eddie Current Suppression Ring, Beaches and Panel of Judges form a choir on Don't Be Surprised and Who Are You. The latter's vocal hooks are simply irresistible,“We'll get drunk, we'll get stoned, we'll get high, we'll get drunk,” they suggest.

Twerps is the sound of a band growing up and finding their sound, and what a fine sound it is that they've landed upon. This is an album that could soundtrack long summer days spent falling out of love. It evokes the prettiness of early evening shadows stretching across the city, the wooziness created by longneck bottles long-since emptied of their contents and an overbearing feeling of sadness at the inevitable unravelling of romance.

Review by Bobby Townsend. It first appeared in Sydney's Drum Media.