Civic – Chrome Dipped (LP Silver Smoke)

Melbourne quartet CIVIC were determined to shake things up with their third album, Chrome Dipped.

“We’d been pushing a sort of ’70s Australian punk sound with our first two records, but I think we wanted to take it in a different direction,” says guitarist Lewis Hodgson. “I think it was all starting to feel a bit stale.”

“We didn’t really know what we were going to make but we went into it very open for change,” adds vocalist Jim McCullough.

That the band were willing to stray from the raw, distinctly Australian punk rock blueprint of 2021’s Future Forecast and 2023’s Taken By Force – an album awarded four stars by British magazine Mojo, and hailed by NME as “a blunt, muscly rock record that’s constantly on edge” – speaks volumes about the group’s approach to their art. Not content to simply repeat former glories, Chrome Dipped is designed to forge new ones.

There are, of course, some references to their past – the venomous sting of the aptly named “Poison” (a blistering attack on “people talking shit”) and neck-breaking stomp of “The Hogg” (so named because of its “disgusting sounding riff”) summon the filth and fury of the band’s early work, while the frenetic pace of “Fragrant Rice” ensures the group’s famously raucous live shows will remain sweat drenched.

But there are elements here that are the work of a band expanding their boundaries, taking their sound into areas such as shoegaze (the woozy “Kingdom Come”, which also incorporates a country twang) and experimenting with different vocal techniques (McCullough’s robotic delivery in “Fragrant Rice”). Hodgson also admits to injecting the songs with more emotional sincerity than he would have in the past been comfortable with.

“We kind of stuck to the rules a little bit earlier on like, do Australian punk rock properly and all that,” says the guitarist. “But after touring around the world and seeing what all these other bands are up to it’s like, you can really do whatever the fuck you want. And so it’s fun to just kind of let go.”

The process wasn’t without its growing pains. The sprawling “Starting All The Dogs Off” calls to mind the apocalyptic abandon of The Birthday Party and The Scientists, eschewing CIVIC’s militant adherence to rigid and precise song structures in favour of something looser and more instinctive. “Not too long ago that was a bit taboo for us,” smiles Hodgson. “Initially it annoyed me, but it was a good exercise.”

To guide the band – which is completed by bassist Roland Hlavka and drummer Eli Sthapit – to these new sonic pastures they tapped Australian singer-songwriter Kirin J. Callinan to produce the record, and legendary musician and producer Chris Townend to engineer. It was Callinan’s idea to spend a week recording at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania, a far cry from the outback house in which CIVIC laid down Taken By Force. “We’ve always done our records DIY,” says McCullough. “This time we wanted to step up and make it sound as big as we could.”

It’s just one more change on a record designed to shake things up and break old patterns. “I hope people feel a little confused at first,” smiles Hodgson, “then a bit angry, and then feel good, and then interested, and then they feel like, ‘Oh, this is sick.’ That process exactly. I hope it’s a bit challenging.”