Strange Love (Marble Vinyl)

Introducing Bleak Squad; the most well-known Melbourne band no one’s heard of. 

Bleak Squad are a new four-piece comprised of Australian art-rock royalty – co-authors of some of the most critically-acclaimed antipodean music of the last 40 years. Featuring Mick Turner (Dirty Three, Mess Esque) Mick Harvey (Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey, The Birthday Party), Adalita (Magic Dirt) and Marty Brown (Art of Fighting), “supergroup” is an embarrassing word. “Supernatural” might be more apt.

“I think the name Bleak Squad speaks to both this loose collection of misfits,” says Adalita of the concoction. “And the noirish mood of our music.” 

Bleak Squads’s debut LP 'Strange Love' is the evolving sum of these parts, one that sees all four members juggle multiple instruments, songwriting, their own idiosyncrasies and - in the case of Adalita and Harvey - lead vocal duties. The nine songs percolate on brooding guitars, slippery bass lines, organ drones, Brown’s lyrical drumming, and the unmistakable, illogical fizz of Turner’s guitar squawks. Over it, Adalita and Harvey swap and share tales of love dampened, hope on hold and threaded tendrils of acceptance.

The nine songs on Strange Love reflect this alchemy – a regal compilation of bruised tunes that swoon and sizzle, while betraying the historic confidence of its members. Opener ‘Lost My Head’, the loping title track and ‘Everything Must Change’ build from sparse rock chugs to a swampy swagger, while the gorgeous ‘World Go to Hell’ and lonesome ‘Blue Signs’ skirt celestial depression. By the time closer ‘Melanie’ collapses in squalls of distortion, something is excised. It’s less a statement from veteran players, than a conjuring of something kinetic and conversational.