Terry Call Me Terry
- Format
12 Inch
Black
£15.00
Jaunty indie-punk, but the at times almost nursery rhyme quality of the songs, belies a coruscating examination of Australian politics, often explored through the country’s architecture and landscape. Bright melodies, bleak histories.
Trembling guitars and harmonised yet deadpan group vocals remain Terry’s sonic hallmark, sitting astride a suitably fluid rhythm section and offbeat, dissonant synths. This tapestry is further enriched by well-judged flourishes of brass, strings, and piano. Lyrically, the album can initially strike as cryptically metaphorical, but each song is explicitly rooted in a specific incident and the desensitised, affectless delivery lends an underlying steel to these figurative explorations.
Call me Terry. It’s been a hot minute since we last heard from Terry, what’s he been up to? Five years on from their last album, ‘I’m Terry’, the Australian post-punk quartet proudly present their new record, ‘Call Me Terry’, for release on April 14th 2023.
Terry is made up of Amy Hill, Al Montfort, Xanthe Waite & Zephyr Pavey who formed in Mexico City in 2015 after seeing Trotsky’s deathbed. Seven years, four albums and four 7”s later, you can now ‘Call Me Terry’. Terry is ready to pick up the phone. Over the past few years, Terry has kept busy with writing and recording “Call Me Terry” and alternating side projects, including Constant Mongrel, The UV Race, Primo!, Sleeper & Snake, Chateau and Rocky.
Terry recorded “Call Me Terry” demos in 2019, sharing further demos during 2020 isolation before getting together to record at the legendary Terry HQ Ringwood Studios in 2022. Overdubs were completed in Terry home studios over the year. Lyrically, in true Terry fashion, the record wastes no time in scrutinising Australia’s corrupt, colonial history. They sing it loud and sprawl it across the jacket of this record, highlighting the greed, privilege and entitlement of white, wealthy “Australia”.
Musically, ‘Call Me Terry’ still has the classic Terry sound; the four vocals singing as one gang, sharp guitars and quirky, burbling synths, the rolling bass and drums. But the sugar on top here may just be some of their finest horn, string and piano performances to date – all of which never feel crowded, cluttered or over-involved. Rest assured Al still gives his famed Fuzz Factory a workout – and throws his tremolo into the pedal chain. It goes off. Tremolo is the order of the day for Amy and Xanthe too who also embrace the wobble, whilst Zephyr keeps the pulse of their politico-pop anchored. Since day dot it’s been hard to reference a band that really sounds like Terry, which is always amazing. Truly a sound of their own!
—Upset The Rhythm