DZ Deathrays - Bloody Lovely

Anybody familiar with the firs two DZ Deathrays records will know that they were, above all else, about fun. The Brisbane duo weren’t out to reinvent the wheel, and instead nailed down their own take on a tried-and-true formula - huge riffs, thundering percussion, rough and ready vocals.

What set them apart was the fact that they didn’t just evoke chaos - they actively seemed to encourage it, in a kind of freewheeling, devil-may-care sense that made for great party music. And sonically, there’s a touch more polish to proceedings on ‘Bloody Lovely’ than previously, but otherwise, there’s little in the way of real surprises. ‘Total Meltdown’ and ‘Feeling Good, Feeling Great’ chronicle the emotional extremes of a heavy night out, whilst ‘Back_Forth’ turns the dial in heaviness terms, with a massive, sludgy guitar line. Only the moody, foreboding ‘Over It’ hints at the pair testing their own boundaries; otherwise, this is another solid Deathrays outing.